


Entaillen

by Domenika Marzione (domarzione)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Hostage Situation, Mission Fic, Missions Gone Wrong, ancients are pains in the butt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-16
Updated: 2012-04-16
Packaged: 2017-11-03 18:11:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domarzione/pseuds/Domenika%20Marzione
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sheppard's team and Lorne's team get taken hostage by an advanced society with little interest in being friendly and lots of ways to make trouble. It all comes down to the Ancients, however, and the ever-mounting debts Atlantis is still being billed for and is now expected to pay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Cast of Characters/the Big List of OCs (because there are more than seven people in Atlantis and they all have names)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/372765)

"How long until dawn you think?" Suarez asks. "We were here for at least ten hours of sunlight."

It has been too dark to see for the last seven hours, Lorne estimates from the corner of the cave where he is nominally sleeping. He doesn't need to look at the time; he knows when they set watches and if Suarez is still on, then it has to be less than five hours since they first stumbled into the cave.

"Maybe six hours," Ronon replies, his voice a low rumble. "Hard to tell the first night."

Suarez grunts something like agreement and they fall quiet again. Not a whole lot to talk about in the middle of the night, at least nothing that's not rehashing events already pulped by hours of the same.

Lorne thinks he dozes; the next time he bothers to listen in to the murmured conversation at the mouth of the cave, it's Reletti and Yoni. He can't make out most of what they're saying, but he can tell by the tone that they both think it's amusing.

Like everyone else who has spent more than a few months in the military, Lorne can sleep almost anywhere. The back of a C-130, rocky ground, prison cells, or wherever else he happens to be. Caves are no exception, but it's not the environment that is keeping him from anything approaching continuous rest tonight. It's his mind's inability to turn itself off, choosing instead to endlessly review the decisions he's made in the last day.

His team won't second-guess his choices, at least not out loud, but he can always tell what they think regardless and none of them have that wary edge that comes when they follow his orders out of obedience and not agreement. Ronon and Teyla have no obligation to even pretend to obedience, but they have gone along without complaint. Nobody here thinks he's fucking this up. Yet. But populist approval doesn't mean he's doing the right thing and so Lorne still wonders as he plans for what they'll do when day breaks.

They need to get back to the stargate; that much is clear. Finding the stargate means that they can report in, get reinforcements, and (perhaps most importantly) get their bearings. Their radios don't work, their PDAs don't work, and the cloudy, featureless day combined with a moonless night has made negotiating the endless forest a challenge that has so far more than confounded their combined experience. Reletti's frustration while on point had the others holding their jibes and even Ronon got turned around more than once. Sheppard and McKay could be right next to them and they'd be hard-pressed to find them.

Lorne knows that Ronon will want to continue the search for them once day comes. But as much as he, too, desperately wants to find Sheppard and McKay and knows that every hour wasted makes that job all the less likely to end successfully, it's a task that would be easier with seventy instead of seven and he fears that they'll need the additional firepower. For rescue or retaliation, he's not yet sure.

It's neither the Wraith nor the Genii, not unless either have taken to methods that are completely outside their normal routines. Which is both a blessing and a curse because while they know how bad the Wraith and the Genii can be, at least there is some advantage to the knowledge. Instead, what they have are a meager collection of clues and half-formed guesses and very little way to act upon them.

Reletti and Yoni have fallen quiet again and Lorne forces himself to clear his mind and sleep. He doesn't know when -- or where -- tomorrow will end.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Cast of Characters/the Big List of OCs (because there are more than seven people in Atlantis and they all have names)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/372765)

They move through the forest with grim determination and silent feet, pausing every hundred meters to leave marks visible by day (a subtle Satedan sigil) and night (a cross painted with the fluid from a chem light) so that they don't either double back again or leave a too-obvious trail for anyone but them to follow. Lorne tries not to think about the hundred different movies this could be ( _Predator_ keeps coming to mind) or how many times he has found himself in similar situations (not as many as might have been imagined), instead focusing on what comes before them -- both literally and metaphorically.

Check-in was fifteen hours ago and the fact that they haven't come across a single marine in that time has not been lost on any of them. Lorne knows the duty roster, knows that Doctor Weir doesn't take it lightly when both senior teams go out together and don't come back on time, and wouldn't be surprised if an entire company were sent out to look for them instead of just the ready-room unit. But, company- or platoon-sized SAR mission, the question is _where are they_?

In the meanwhile, Lorne's team (Teyla and Ronon being temporarily folded under that umbrella) move on. Camp was broken at first light, a little more than two hours ago. Dawn found them back where they'd been at nightfall the previous evening, muddling through a forest that seemed to be the size of New Jersey and just as easily negotiable. Ronon is in the lead out of deference to his abilities as well as his impatience; he didn't argue the logic of needing to find the stargate to find Sheppard and McKay, but Lorne isn't mistaking acquiescence for agreement. Nonetheless, he knows Ronon appreciates best how precarious their situation is right now.

They are being hunted.

It's nothing as overt as arrows flying through the air or other projectile warnings or even anyone they can see or hear, but it's there and they all sense it. Lorne has seen too much to believe in the sort of coincidences that would be required to make the events of the last hours naturally occurring. Days and nights of useless, cloudy skies can be waved off as a kind of Murphy's Law of Land Navigation and the way their compasses are growing more unreliable and their radios aren't able to pick anything up even for line-of-sight transmissions can maybe be explained by magnetic forces. But why their Ancient PDAs are shot to shit and yet their Earth electronics are fine is a mystery. It's not a good mystery because it's never anything but bad when Ancient tech goes haywire and Sheppard disappears. And even though Reletti (who has a stronger genetic affinity than either McKay or Lorne himself) is still here and not sensing anything odd beyond the vague doom that they all feel, the thought that this involves the Ancients somehow is on everyone's mind. Nobody says a word and yet Lorne _knows_ ; Ortilla isn't quite hovering, but everyone is watching him and Reletti.

(They don't speak about their time in the Genii prison any more than they have to, which pretty much boiled down to the mandated sessions with Heightmeyer and the debriefs. Reletti went through a miserable day of testing in Medical after they'd received a sample of the drug he'd reacted to so badly and other people mention how terrifying Yoni had been for the duration of their imprisonment, but that's mostly been it. And so neither he nor Reletti say anything. Because they all know and speaking of it won't change anything.)

They are maintaining noise discipline and so it is through hand signals that Lorne is summoned up to the front of the group. Ronon and Suarez are standing next to a tree that is thicker than the ones surrounding it, but it is not until Lorne draws up next to them that he can see why.

"It's not new," Ronon says in a quiet voice, crouching down next to Lorne, who looks over the skeletal remains of what was once a person with grim distaste. "Bones've been out in the air for a while."

Lorne doesn't ask what killed the man (probably a man); the top half of the skull is missing, smoothly cut away, and Lorne is sure that this lobotomy was ante-mortem even if there's no way to know for real without Yoni's input. He pokes gingerly at the tattered clothes and he hates that both Ronon and Suarez, who is standing at his left, know that it's just him checking to make sure that there's nothing he recognizes here. Because this is Pegasus and it's not out of the realm of possibility that this is the long-dead, exposed-to-the-elements corpse of either Sheppard or McKay.

If it is either of them, Lorne can't find any clue. He stands up slowly, ignoring the pop of his right knee, and nods to Ronon. "Let's get going."

They continue walking, the air getting warmer and the overcast sky brighter. They come across four more corpses, three skeletal and one rotting. Yoni estimates that the last one has been dead two months and it was probably death by a stun weapon, which brings everything back to the Wraith because this wouldn't be the first time or the fifth that they've stumbled into Wraith territory.

"I sense nothing," Teyla repeats as they take a break, sitting in an arrangement that is more suited to protection than conversation. Suarez is re-arranging the load in his ruck, but everyone else is combining physical lassitude with mental alertness and the effect is sort of a very tense bonelessness, at least for Yoni and Ronon. Reletti looks like he's dozing, but his head is cocked to listen and his hand is on his rifle and Lorne knows better.

"I don't think it's the Wraith," Lorne says after he looks at the shards of wheat snack bread in his hand. They are mostly picking at the side dishes and snacks from the same MREs they ate in the morning. Ortilla has his ever-present bag of pistachios out to share, but nobody is taking from it. They've seen enough streams to not worry about water, but their MRE supply won't last forever (or more than another day -- three if they ration) and none of them want to have to worry about hunting for food as they themselves are prey and so those nuts may end up as far more important than a snack. "Nothing about yesterday made us think it was them and nothing we've seen today has changed my mind."

Ronon grunts agreement. "Wraith don't climb trees."

Out of the context of Ronon's verbal shorthand, the statement is both funny and not correct -- Lorne is sure that Wraith could climb trees if they wanted to -- but today's not a day to be pedantic. Yesterday's attacks came from above and that's simply not the Wraith way of doing things.

"Could it be those Ewok people, sir?" Reletti asks, eyes still closed. "You know, the ones who had Colonel Sheppard's team up in cages in the trees?"

Next to Ronon, Yoni gives a lazy grin of remembrance. Ronon doesn't share it.

"Those people did not have stun weapons," Teyla answers. They never figured out what the real name of the planet was, so they ended up calling it Endor and the locals Ewoks and Lorne and Sheppard got a good laugh out of imagining the SGC's reaction to the AAR. It seems impossibly long ago, even though it was only been a few months. "And I do not think that there are enough trees here that are large enough to sustain the network of bridges and homes they used."

Yesterday's attack had been almost over before they realized it had started. Sauntering none-too-quietly through a world they thought uninhabited, nobody had thought too much of McKay's radio silence after he'd wandered off chasing an energy reading (the PDAs had been working then, or at least had been flaking out in a way that made it impossible to tell). McKay was known to ignore summonses when he found something more interesting. It was only when Sheppard, who'd gone after him, also failed to respond to radio contact that they got concerned and it was only when they heard the rustling in the trees, far too loud and forceful to be the usual sort of forest creatures, that they realized that something was going very, very wrong. By the time darkness had fallen, they'd known that Sheppard and McKay hadn't done anything so benign as fall down a trap door and they'd known that the odds were that things were probably not going to get better before they got worse.

They sit quietly, wary and weary and still not sure where the hell the cavalry is, until Lorne looks at his watch. "All right. Everyone get their boots back on."

Their endless combat patrol continues deep into the afternoon with no luck beyond the fact that they are all still together and in one piece. No stargate, no sign of either their missing teammates or anything that might lead to where they were taken. There are two more skeletons and nothing in the trees. Teyla is right -- the forest here isn't old and heavy enough to support a colony in the trees. Which leads them to wonder, silently, just how the hell they were attacked the day before.

"Oh, fuck," Suarez coughs out as Ronon yanks him back suddenly. Lorne jogs up to them, feeling the heaviness in his legs, and stops. There's a sharp drop off into a defile, the depth of which is impossible to tell because of all of the bones in it.

"Wonderful," Yoni spits behind him. "Genocide comes in so many flavors in this forsaken galaxy."

Teyla makes a small noise and Reletti ducks to hear what she whispers, then starts walking along the edge. Before Lorne can call after him, he drops to the ground, leaning over so that he can reach down. He finds whatever he's fishing for and grunts quietly as he pushes himself back up. In his hand is an old rifle.

"It's an old-school carbine," Suarez says as Reletti brings his prize back. "Like Old West kind of old-school."

Lorne, who knows perfectly well that Suarez can identify pretty much any modern firearm, cocks an eyebrow at Ortilla, who is oriented to look behind them, maintaining security. Ortilla, sensing the gaze, looks back with the same question on his face that Lorne has on his. Have they stumbled onto a battlefield?

"It is a Genii weapon," Teyla says, holding out her hand. Reletti gives her the carbine. She turns it over in her small hands, careful not to aim the barrel at anyone. "I remember these from when I was a child. They are very old. The Genii used them as hunting rifles."

"Not very accurate ones," Suarez muttered. "No range."

"Not the point," Reletti countered. "Whoever's got the Colonel and Doctor McKay knocked the fuck out the Genii at some point."

The Genii are not tactical geniuses, for all of their weapons savvy and superior numbers. It's entirely possible that a smaller, better-trained, better-armed force wiped them out. But, either way, if that same force is the one coming after them....

"We'd better go," Ronon says. "Too much standing around, too much noise."

Lorne agrees and they move on.

Dusk is approaching, or at least it feels that way with the breeze picking up and turning cool and the overcast sky darkening slowly. They haven't found any place as sheltered as the cave to set up an overnight camp and, all considering, Lorne is tempted to push through the night -- or at least until they can find a defensible position. Teyla and Ronon function well enough in the dark without NODs and it's better to be a moving target than a stationary one. There's more to this navigational confusion than the inability to take azimuths or measure by sun or stars, even before the inability to find the SAR unit went from curiosity to conspiracy.

They continue on long past when they can see the glowy stains on Ortilla's hands from the chem light fluid he's using to paint crosses on the trees with a muttered prayer in Spanish that they pretend not to hear. They don't need to slow down all that much -- they weren't going so quickly before. Teyla moves carefully, her natural grace not completely able to compensate for the pitch-black darkness (the ambient light is so poor that it's a little dark even with the goggles) and the marines all offer to give her their goggles at various points and she always refuses. Ronon pushes on, not saying anything except to pause and ask Yoni to treat a scratch on his forearm that is bleeding enough to leave a trail on the ground.

Three hours after full dark, Lorne calls a halt even though they are not anyplace where they can do more than set up a very small perimeter and hope for the best. But he's been looking for the last five hours and it's been like this the entire time. Nobody has any better ideas; they're all tired from more than just the hike. So they do just that, splitting in half for two overnight watches.

"It's like SERE," Lorne hears Reletti say to someone he can't see. He's already taken off his NODs; the headache from their weight hasn't yet begun to fade, but it's not bad enough to dig the aspirin out of his tac vest. "We're just wandering around in circles until we get caught."

"Way to be an optimist, dude," Suarez replies from somewhere to Reletti's right.

"Optimism's got nothing to do with this," Reletti sighs. He doesn't sound despondent or even particularly depressed. Just resigned to bad times ahead. "We're in some kind of maze and there's no right-hand rule that applies."

Lorne closes his eyes and hunkers down into a comfortable position. In hindsight, he'll come to rue the fact that he was unable to sleep on the night when nothing happened, but slept right through the next attack.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Cast of Characters/the Big List of OCs (because there are more than seven people in Atlantis and they all have names)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/372765)

The first thought as he's shaken awake is that he's going to complete his entire military career without ever being able to wake up alert and on his own. The second is that it's light out, thus it's already morning and he's going to kill whichever of the marines thought it was a good idea to let him sleep through his watch because they've already had this discussion. The third thought comes as he looks around and then at Reletti, who is kneeling next to him with his rifle unslung and a worried look on his face.

"Fuck," Lorne mutters, looking around again, as if the scene would change once he blinked the grogginess from his eyes. "They're not off getting water, are they."

Reletti shakes his head no. The sound of twigs breaking underfoot and Reletti's rifle turns at the noise, but it's just Ronon returning. The big man approaches and crouches down on the other side from Reletti and Lorne swallows to try to get his heart out of his throat at the realization that they've gone from seven to three overnight. 

"No signs," he says with a shake of his head. "They weren't dragged."

Lorne reaches over for his canteen, takes a long draught, and runs his fingers through his hair. "What the hell happened?" he asks. "How did they manage this?"

The 'what' is obvious -- an ambush of some kind -- and he doesn't expect an answer there. The 'how' is what worries him, as is the 'who'. Whoever is hunting them didn't just take those on watch; Reletti was left behind and Ortilla, who had been on the second watch and probably asleep when the attack came, is gone. Ortilla is bigger than Ronon, so for someone -- some _thing_ \-- to take him away without anyone noticing, without leaving a _trace_.... 

"I don't remember anything," Reletti says, self-disgust evident. "They must've knocked us out, but I don't remember it."

"What _do_ you remember?" Lorne asks carefully. Reletti's not delicate, but he's obviously reeling a little from the guilt and Lorne can afford to worry about him even as they need answers. 

Reletti closes his eyes for a long moment, opening them when Ronon stands. "I took Teyla on a pee break," he says with wry embarrassment. "It was a typical overnight in a forest. We were all a little spooked, checking into every fucking noise and it wasn't ever anything. Just squirrels or whatever roams around here at night. Nothing was going on. Nothing. And then I woke up with the sun in my eyes."

Unlike yesterday, the heavy clouds that obscured the sun are gone. From what Lorne can see through the tree canopy, the sky is an uninterrupted blue. 

"Could've been those stun weapons from yesterday," Ronon says, not looking down. He's got one hand on the blaster he carries on his hip and Lorne doesn't bother telling him that it's probably pointless. 

Reletti snorts and stands up. "Yeah, well, I'm not puking, so it wasn't drugs."

Lorne gets up carefully, the twinges and soreness between his shoulder blades from more than just his pack. "I vote for stun weapons," he says, rolling his neck slowly. He's gotten nailed with those enough times (curiously, never by actual Wraith) to know the aftereffects all too well. 

"What's the plan?" Ronon asks. 

Lorne doesn't hesitate. "Same as yesterday. We try to get back to the stargate."

"What about Sheppard and the others?" 

"We were outmatched with seven and we'd get creamed with three," Lorne says. He isn't sure if Ronon is intentionally trying to loom or just standing too close. Either way, Lorne isn't intimidated and doesn't especially care. Reletti does, however, and Lorne distracts him from any incipient pissing matches by gesturing toward the packs left behind by the missing. "Find which one is Doctor Safir's."

Reletti complies, sparing one last glance at Ronon. 

"Look," Lorne sighs. "Our best chance -- and their best chance -- is for us to get back in contact with Atlantis and get reinforcements. Which means finding the stargate."

And figuring out where the hell the marines sent to find them are. 

"And if we don't?" 

"Then we'll find out the hard way where our people are because we'll be imprisoned right next to them," he replies, shrugging with a casualness that he doesn't feel. Ronon isn't being contrary; Lorne can tell that much. But that doesn't mean he can also tell what Ronon is looking for from him. "Are they running us around in circles? Probably. But everyone makes mistakes and every trap has a back door. I'm willing to bet the safety of our missing on you and Sergeant Reletti finding one for us."

Ronon nods curtly and Lorne thinks -- hopes -- that Ronon got his answer. He turns away and goes over to the furthest of the packs on the ground. 

Reletti walks over to them carrying what must be Yoni's pack. "This is Doc's. We taking all of the medical stuff or just what we know how to use?"

"How much of a difference is there?" Lorne asks him. The folks back on Earth won't give them enough Corpsmen, so everyone has to take the combat lifesaver course and its refreshers. But while Yoni carries the same first aid supplies as everyone else who steps through the stargate, he also carries a whole host of other tools and gear. 

Reletti kneels down and opens up the pack, pulling out the medical bag. He rifles through it, pulling out bandages and some small bottles and what Lorne knows is Yoni's field surgery kit before pulling out an oddly shaped box and holding it up. 

"That's the new portable defibrillator," Lorne tells him. "If we're dealing with stun weapons, we may need it."

Behind him, he can see Ronon collecting the other packs and opening them up, pulling out MREs and other food items and collecting canteens. 

"I know Doc'll kill us for leaving his toys behind, sir," Reletti says as he looks over the items spread before him, "but I don't see us doing any kind of surgery where we'd be picking out a scalpel instead of just using our ka-bars."

Reletti's right on both accounts. 

Pulling together what they can use out of the four packs left behind doesn't take long. It feels odd and disrespectful to just abandon the rest, but they have no choice. They can't get weighed down. That doesn't mean that Lorne doesn't notice Reletti digging out Suarez's St. Michael's medal or the laminated picture of Ortilla's son and he's quite sure that not everything that made its way from Yoni's pack into the pile of essential medical equipment would qualify as such. He doesn't ask Ronon if anything personal should be taken out of Teyla's pack; if there is, then it already has been. 

They eat MREs out of necessity and not any real desire for food, take two canteens a piece, and split the extra gear between their packs -- Ronon taking Ortilla's, since he didn't bring one of his own. They don't talk. 

Now that they can compare the direction the sun is traveling in with the direction in which they've been walking, navigating becomes less hopeful guesswork and more steady progress. The sun was behind them, more or less, when they came through the stargate and it was morning local time, so there's a half-decent chance that they are heading in the right direction. Unless their hunters are messing with the sun as well and Lorne isn't yet ready to either allow or discount the possibility of that. 

They walk for hours, taking brief breaks to rest legs that are just growing heavier, and the scenery never changes until suddenly it does and they pass from the endless stands of trees into a small clearing. 

"The stargate was in a place like this," Reletti says as he looks around. "There were silver dollar trees there, too."

He's gesturing across the clearing from where they're standing, but Lorne's attention is drawn to Ronon, who is crouching off to their right, his back to them. "What is it, Ronon?"

Ronon stands up. "Cranberry muffin," he says, coming toward them with something in his hand. 

Lorne feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. "Like McKay's Poisonous Muffin of Doom?"

The commissary kitchens are working their way through a hundred bushels of cranberries, the sole export of a planet eager to express their gratitude for Lieutenant Salker's platoon rescuing them from flash floods and rebuilding their broken dam four months ago. Most of the berries were frozen so it's not a use-it-or-lose-it kind of urgency, but there's been a steady supply of muffins and preserves and the occasional experiment as each platoon cycles through KP duty. 

"Fuck," Reletti sighs, looking at the mass of destroyed muffin in Ronon's hand. 

As they had been coming through the stargate two days ago, Suarez had accidentally (maybe) set McKay off by regaling a tale of woe involving a grater and orange zest from when he'd helped his mother make cranberry muffins as a child. McKay, who'd been inhaling the muffins for months without ill effect, had spit out what had been in his mouth and dumped the rest on the ground as if it had suddenly turned to dog shit. Sheppard had teasingly chided McKay on his manners, McKay had launched into a diatribe about the marines trying to kill the most valuable member of the expedition, and he'd still been pissy enough later on that nobody had thought twice when he didn't respond to his radio right away. 

"If that's McKay's," Lorne says, looking around, "then where the hell is the stargate?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Cast of Characters/the Big List of OCs (because there are more than seven people in Atlantis and they all have names)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/372765)

If he'd paused to think about it, Lorne is sure that it would have been obvious that Ronon would be the most disturbed by the missing stargate. Reletti didn't grow up with them as either concept or means of transportation, had instead come to learn about them at the same time he'd learned about spaceships and aliens and he'd been beamed to and from the _Daedalus_ before he'd ever been through a wormhole. A missing stargate doesn't equate to "trapped" for Reletti the way it does for Ronon. Even if, in this case, Ronon is right.

Nonetheless, Ronon doesn't freak out per se; he has simply been though too much. Instead, Lorne could almost _see_ the recalibration, the way the change in the rules of the game got reflected in his bearing. They already knew that they were being hunted, but this... Lorne remembers when Ronon first came to Atlantis, when he was still in Runner mode. This is like that.

For his own part, Lorne is willing to roll with the punches. This isn't the first time in the annals of the Stargate Program that a gate had gone AWOL; hell, this isn't the first time this _year_. They'll simply have to hold out long enough to get rescued by the _Daedalus_ , which will take less time than the last because at least Atlantis knows which planet they are on.

"I guess this explains why we never ran into the SAR team," Reletti says as crosses the small clearing, turning around as if to try and remember where the stargate had been.

"Yeah," Lorne agrees, turning back to Ronon. "Where do you want to start looking?"

There's no point in doing anything else, not when the alternative is sitting around and waiting, either to be caught or to be rescued. Assuming the stargate here has been inaccessible since the first time they missed a check-in, then that's enough time for Polito, who will have become interim commander, and Weir to have established some sort of plan of action. Lorne doesn't remember if there are any planets with stargates in puddle jumper range; otherwise, the _Daedalus_ left Atlantis ten days ago and getting it to turn around will require opening a wormhole to Earth and, even then, they may choose to resupply before returning. Because it's not like his team or Sheppard's haven't gone missing before and the novelty has probably worn off by now.

Ronon tilts his head, either in thought or to listen to something Lorne certainly can't hear. "That way," he says, gesturing in the opposite direction from which they came. "There's been nothing so far where we've been."

There's a chance that they just missed something, but Lorne doubts it.

"We should look for another clearing," Reletti says, looking up. "If they came from the trees, then we should get out from under them."

In case the stargate re-appears and their rescuers show up, they mark the clearing (Ronon with Satedan script and Reletti with 'semper fi' painted in chem light fluid) and then head off. It feels different this time, Lorne realizes as they disappear into the trees once more. There is no hiding the fact that they are prey this time, no pretending that they are hunting something while being hunted themselves. Because, yeah, they're looking for some clue as to who has their missing teammates and where they're being held (the alternative not worth considering), but Lorne doesn't like their odds of finding anything before they are found. He doesn't say as much out loud, but he knows both Ronon and Reletti are thinking the same thing. Reletti wasn't wrong with the comparison to SERE school, except here they don't know that they'll be set free, pass or fail, in a fixed amount of time.

Lorne mostly expects Ronon to withdraw into himself as the day progresses, retreating to whatever mindset he needed to adopt to survive as a Runner, but he doesn't. Quite the opposite -- he makes a point of interacting with both Lorne and Reletti, pointing out an edible plant ("you can eat it; didn't say it tasted good") to supplement their dwindling supplies and volunteering the odd bit of tactical experience. Whether it's out of comfort (to himself or to them) or some weird sense of obligation to Sheppard to protect his men or for some other purpose, Lorne doesn't begin to guess. Instead, he takes care to encourage Ronon without being too obvious. He's less worried about Reletti, who for all of his youth can compartmentalize like a pro, skilled warrior one minute and _Reletti_ the next. But he worries a little bit about Ronon because Sheppard worries a little bit about Ronon and he's sure, wherever they are, that Sheppard is looking after his men for him, too.

It was already afternoon by the time they found where the stargate should have been and while the days are long here, dusk comes sooner than they'd like. They haven't found another clearing, although the trees are becoming less densely packed and they're all hoping that that's a sign that the endless forest could be, in fact, end _ing_.

"Fuck," Reletti mutters as he rolls smoothly out of a tumble. It's not really dark enough to use the goggles and not quite bright enough to clearly see the dark, uneven ground. Ronon's been grumbling to himself about the terrain and Lorne has already been unceremoniously yanked out of a stumble or three by Ronon's hand on the collar of his jacket, but while his right ankle may be a little stiff tomorrow morning, that's about it.

"You okay?" he asks as he follows Ronon to where Reletti is picking himself up off of the ground.

"Yes, sir," Reletti replies, adjusting the hanging canteens and checking that none of the pockets on his tac vest opened.

"Sergeant," he warns, because this is Reletti, who does not self-report injury. "Doctor Safir isn't here to coerce you into a confession, but I'm sure Ronon will pinch-hit if asked."

Next to him, Ronon looks both appraising and a little eager for the opportunity. It was a moment of almost-levity in a situation that has pretty much been devoid of such. If he wasn't worried that Reletti might actually be hurt, he'd smile.

"I'm fine, sir," Reletti sighs. "Really. If I start bitching about a skinned knee, when we get out of here, I'll have to quit the Marines and join the Army."

They both know he would've said Air Force in almost any other circumstance, so Lorne gives him a glare for good measure and Reletti suddenly realizes that his boot could use re-tying.

As they did yesterday, they go a few hours after full dark, mostly for the chance that they'll come across a defensible position. They find a large rock, a bus-sized boulder that sticks out as much for its size as for the fact that it has no mates anywhere nearby and is surrounded by large trees.

"Must've been here a long time," Reletti says as they sit down heavily. "The trees here are pretty old."

They eat some of the berries they found earlier (Ronon has a name for them, but they are so close to unripe mulberries that that's what Lorne and Reletti call them) and a handful each of Ortilla's pistachios. Reletti describes pistachio ice cream for Ronon, who in turn seems more interested in the fact that pistachios are apparently prone to spontaneous combustion ("no, really, sir. You can check when we get back.") than in whether it is important for the ice cream to be dyed bright green.

Lorne is tempted to not bother setting watches -- it did them no good last night and they can all use the rest -- but not to the point where he voices the idea aloud because it's still tantamount to giving up. Reletti asks for the first watch and Lorne lets him take it. Ronon'll take middle watch and he'll pick up the last until first light.

They don't make it until daybreak. Halfway though Ronon's watch, he's shaken awake by Reletti, who tells him through hand signals that they are being surveilled from almost head-on. Ronon is maybe a yard in front of them, pistol drawn and coiled for action. Reletti gestures that he's going to the top of boulder and Lorne nods. If they're surrounded in the trees, then he's just making himself a bigger target, but if it's an attack from the ground, then Reletti will maybe gain enough advantage from the height of the boulder to make a difference.

Lorne shuffles forward to Ronon, tapping him lightly on the shoulder with one hand and unclipping his P-90 with the other. When he has Ronon's attention, he indicates that he'll take the 0-90 degree arc, leaving Ronon to watch the 91-180 degree side. They have the boulder behind them and Reletti above and it'll have to do.

It doesn't, of course.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Cast of Characters/the Big List of OCs (because there are more than seven people in Atlantis and they all have names)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/372765)

Lorne wakes up slowly at first, groggy and wondering if other people get to wake up alert and well-rested and then, like a slap, it hits him and he's alert in a heartbeat. He sits up, regretting it instantly as his head swims and he fights back the urge to puke, and closes his eyes again. He feels a little flu-like, itchy in some non-specific way, headache a dull roar that's well short of migraine but a little past ignorable. Probably from drugs because he already knows what their stun weapons do to him and that's not this.

Opening his eyes carefully again, he looks around. He's alone, in a well-light, clean, _empty_ room. The wall behind his back and the floor under his bare feet are soft; the surface feels like some sort of sueded fabric and there's give under his feet. A rubber room, kind of, and that's so very much not a good omen. In his limited experience as a prisoner, soft walls and floors tend to indicate that you are going to be bounced off of them.

He's not wearing his own clothes, which is unsurprising and disturbing and getting to be a really bad habit. Instead of his uniform, he's wearing some light-colored, loose-fitting outfit that looks like hospital scrubs but isn't four sizes too large. It also isn't nearly as scratchy as the crap the Genii had given him to wear. He wishes he had socks.

Careful of his headache and suspicious of his equilibrium, he pushes up the wall slowly until he's standing. But he's not wobbling or tilting and so he steps away from the wall, walking slowly around his cell to get a measure of it. It's large, maybe fifteen by fifteen, and it's sterile. There are no seams in the fabric covering the walls, no tears, no stains, no specks of dirt. There is nothing in here except him. He looks up at the ceiling for cameras or sensors or anything else that might indicate surveillance, but whatever's there -- and there _has_ to be something -- is too small or too well-hidden for him to see.

There is a window and a door and he saves those for last. The door is a door. No handle or knob on the inside, no gap between it and the frame, no keyhole to see through, no window. He gets down on his belly and tilts his head to try to see underneath, but there's nothing, not even the quiet whisper of a breeze from air coming through.

The window is a mirror and Lorne finds himself almost pleased at the predictability of it. A two-way mirror. _Of course_. The window frame is a little too high up for him to be able to do much damage. Even with a running start from the far wall, he'd be hard-pressed to get his center of gravity high enough to impact the window at any useful point. He crosses to it, pressing his face close and shielding his eyes from the light with his hands so that he can maybe see a little bit on the other side. But he can't. All he can see are his own pupils and, when he pulls back a little, that he could use a shower and a shave. He taps a fingertip against the glass to see if he can tell by sound whether it's glass or plexiglass or the sort of glassy material Atlantis is seemingly built out of and.... nothing. No sound at all. He raps his knuckles against it, feeling the impact on his hand and yet he hears _nothing_.

"What the--?" he asks out loud and stops because he can't hear his own words. "--fuck?"

He knows he's speaking, holds a hand pressed against his sternum to feel the vibrations and yet _nothing_. "Okay, this isn't good."

He takes a deep breath and then another and tries to quiet the wave of nauseous panic because he can't hear himself breathing, either. All he hears is a sort of low hum, like the distant thrum of a jet engine with his headphones on except quieter.

 _Maybe it's temporary_ , he thinks to himself because he can't bear to say it out loud. Maybe it's a side effect of the drugs. He's heard of blindness from head injuries and Purkowski had no feeling in his hands for a week after getting nailed with some Jaffa weapon that one time and maybe this is just like that. Or maybe it's something the doctors can fix once they're freed; Abelard's an ENT. Or maybe it's permanent and his eventual destination is back to Earth and out of the Air Force because the SGC isn't running short of majors and they don't need a deaf one. Or maybe it's all psychosomatic and he'd really better stop freaking himself out and start working on how he's going to compensate for the loss in the here-and-now.

He doesn't have a watch, doesn't know what time it is or if it's day or night or how much time has passed since his capture. He works on trying to convince himself that it doesn't matter right now, that it's like his deafness and something he'll just have to deal with until he doesn't. But it's not easy and he's never been good at just dropping things without picking something else up to use as distraction. But there's nothing else except the mountain of information that he doesn't know. Are Reletti and Ronon in identical cells? Are Sheppard and the others? Is everyone safe? The others before them were taken without a fight, but he and Reletti and Ronon were engaged in battle before they were taken. Will that be held against them? Will that be held against the others?

He drops down to the floor and does alternative reps of sit-ups and push-ups until his muscles ache, keeping his mind busy by keeping count. When he's done, he sits down with his back against the door because it's the only way he'll have any advance warning that someone is coming.

In between replays of the past few days in his head, starting with the discussions in Atlantis on why the Ancient Database had been so damned cryptic about M29-G4K (in his memories, he can still hear), he dozes. When he wakes up, there is a tray of food next to him and one wall of the cell has been shifted to reveal a sort of bathroom. He ignores the food for the moment, pretends he doesn't care about how it got there without him feeling the door opening, and goes over to the bathroom, which is about the size of the closet in his quarters in Atlantis. There's a sink, what he assumes is a toilet, and a single shelf with a towel and another set of the clothing he is currently wearing. On top of the clothes is his toiletries kit from his pack, a find that sends his heart soaring because there's a razor in there... except there isn't anymore. His toothbrush is there, as is his comb and soap and baby wipes and chapstick, but nothing useful as far as potential weapons. Because while he's sure that someone can make a shiv out of a travel toothbrush, that someone isn't him.

Still feeling crappy -- whatever they dosed him with, it's not passing out of his system with any speed -- he gives himself a crude sponge bath, taking advantage of the wire mesh floor to drain away water. It's surreal to the point of distraction to not hear the water splashing in the sink and he stands at an uncomfortable angle so that he can both reach the sink and see the door. Although if the tray is any indication, then it doesn't really matter if he can see them opening it.

Once he's dry (and, admittedly, feeling a helluva lot better now that he's clean for the first time in however many days since they came through the wormhole), he goes back to the tray. He doesn't think the food is poisoned -- there's really no point in capturing a prisoner alive and providing amenities and then killing them -- but it could be drugged. The question is what are the intended effects of any possible drug. It could be just to make him sleep, which with the lack of anything else interesting to do is probably what he's going to be doing a lot of anyway. It could be something more nefarious, a preparation for an interrogation or a subtler drug like the way Ford doped Sheppard's team with the Wraith enzyme. Maybe turn him into the kind of half-man, half-creature things that attacked them.

Or it could be nothing. If his mysterious captors are taking enough care to give him his soap and his toothbrush, simply feeding him isn't out of the question.

Irrespective of how long its been since his last meal -- counting pistachios and sour mulberries as a meal -- and how much water he drank out of the tap in the sink, he's hungry. And he knows that one of the first rules is to eat when there's food because you don't know how long until -- or if -- the next meal comes. He'll take the risk that it's drugged. Even if it's laced with the Pegasus equivalent of sodium pentathol, he thinks it's probably better not to be interrogated on an empty stomach. And, as for any transformative properties... he'd be a lousy werewolf, he's pretty sure, but he doesn't yet have a sense for the ambitions of his hosts.

If the food is drugged, it's subtle. His meal is shockingly like something he'd see in the Atlantis commissary in the weeks right before the _Daedalus_ shows up, when they're more heavily reliant on locally-produced foodstuffs. A few different kind of vegetables, something that he thinks is going to be near-deer but tastes more like pork, and bread. He has no utensils, so he uses the bread where he can and his fingers. Dinner on mute is no less disturbing than everything else. He can't hear himself chew or swallow, can't hear his fingers on the tray. He eats facing the door, but he can't shake the weight of vulnerability. It, along with the itchiness and the headache, are here to stay.

After he eats, he washes his tray, more out of something to do than any sense of obligation or politeness. He could use it as a weapon, he supposes. He sits for a little while, then starts pacing around his cell, counting the footsteps it takes to reach each wall (nine or ten, depending on how close he takes each corner), then decides that he's going to walk a kilometer since he knows how many footfalls it takes to do that. He walks his kilometer, and then another in the other direction. He does more sit-ups and push-ups. He stretches. And, eventually, he gets bored and he's still tired and so he sits down with his back to the door and sleeps.

When he wakes, there is another tray. Next to the tray is his deck of cards.

The routine -- such as it is -- continues for however long. It's definitely days, but he has no way of knowing how many. Meals are only ever delivered when he's asleep -- he tries staying up for as long as he can, marking time with the cards, and all he ever gets is tired and hungry -- and with no pattern as to content that he can guess breakfast or dinner. He exercises constantly -- the marines will be so proud -- and plays cards (bridge by yourself is asinine, but there's only so much solitaire a man can play) and washes himself and his tray and his clothes with what must seem like compulsion if he were watching himself. He's not being drugged -- the food doesn't put him to sleep or make him loopy or uninhibited and if he's looking more like the werewolf-things that attacked him and Ronon and Reletti, it's because he can't shave.

This isn't how he wants to spend the rest of his days.

The deafness doesn't pass, nor does the itchiness that can't be scratched or the headache. He makes a point of talking out loud at least once a cycle (he doesn't want to call the times when he's awake 'days'), mostly to remember what talking feels like. He says the alphabet, he recites dialogue from _Spaceballs_ , he sings his college fight song (badly, something completely independent of his deafness). He sometimes talks to his captors, telling them that they are peaceful explorers and mean no harm, that he wants to know how his companions are faring, that he wants to go home. He doesn't know if they understand him -- or if anyone else would understand him. Speaking without hearing is like typing without looking at the screen -- you shift your fingers a little and you might as well be typing in Welsh or Hungarian. He wonders if he sounds like a braying donkey yet.

His emotions become a form of entertainment. He measures his despair, his boredom, his irritability, trying to find the highs and lows (there is more of the latter than the former) and ride the differences like a roller coaster. He gets himself worked up about choices he made (should've kept moving, should've sent someone back to the stargate right away) and then he rationalizes himself back to even keel.

He might be going a little mad.

One cycle, after he's done everything there is to do (including _that_ ), he falls asleep. He doesn't bother sleeping against the door anymore, instead making himself comfortable by lying down and spreading out. When he wakes up, he's not in his cell. He's in a different room, one with windows that look _outside_. He's sitting in a chair with his hands tied firmly (if not uncomfortably) to the armrests and he's disoriented as hell because this is the first change of environment in however long and because he can _hear_.

Everything is too loud -- his breathing, his heartbeat, the give and groan of his unyielding bindings, and the dry chuckle of the man sitting across from him.

There are three men in the room, two big like Ortilla and just as menacing looking and _armed_ and one older man, slender and serious and watching him from another chair. He gets up, patiently and slowly and Lorne is transfixed because it's all a bit of sensory overload.

"Why have you come here, Lantean?"


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Cast of Characters/the Big List of OCs (because there are more than seven people in Atlantis and they all have names)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/372765)

The first time he had ever been interrogated for real (as opposed to the SERE training), it had been on board a ha'tak and he'd held out for as long as he could before telling the Jaffa tasering him what he wanted to know. Years later and it still felt like he'd given in too easily, although with enough hindsight he could agree (intellectually, at least) with the shrink that he'd done all right under the circumstances. The second time had been kind of a wash because he'd been concussed and wasn't making any sense and the dumb bastards who were trying to trade SG-11 for relief from Olokun's minion's minion's tithes had come to realize that only too late and died for the mistake. By the third time, lying on the floor of an al'kesh cargo hold with blood in his mouth and a broken pinky, he'd almost gotten the rhythm of it and spent his energy focusing on what to tell (nothing useful) and how (before they got sadistically violent) instead of on the feelings of failure or how maybe he should have stayed with Big Air Force because the POW ratio among Stratotanker pilots was really damned low.

Now, years later and a galaxy removed, the lessons still apply and are all that much easier to recall. Don't get frustrated. Don't believe what you're told. Don't forget that the important thing is to survive, not to be a hero.

(After the third time he'd been interrogated, after they'd been rescued by SG-1 and SG-3, Lorne had accepted a careful hand up from Jack O'Neill and a pat on the shoulder and an appraising look. "It sucks when you get used to it, doesn't it?")

He has spent his time in the chair thus far reacquainting himself with his hearing, something that's far more disorienting than he'd have expected. Even without the man hovering in and out of his personal space. The man (Sid, Lorne decides to call him) circles around him, sits down, doesn't keep still long enough for Lorne to get his bearings on the room. It's like being underwater, everything distorted and slow to reach him. Lorne closes his eyes to listen without seeing, but Sid makes sudden loud noises -- slapping a table, snapping his fingers by Lorne's ear -- that keep him from finding center. It's part of the game, he understands that even as he's not able to quite overcome it. He twitches and reacts every time.

"We came in peace," he says again, for what must be the fifth time. His voice is probably little more than a whisper, but it feels loud in his head. "We came to explore. We meant no harm -- we _mean_ no harm. Just let us go and we'll be gone."

Sid laughs, an ugly sound. It grates in his ears, making the headache worse, and he closes his eyes again.

His headache, constant and annoying and _there_ for the last however many weeks (he knows that time bends and folds when you're in captivity; SERE taught him the hard way that under the right conditions, three hours can feel like twenty-four) isn't going away now that he can hear. He's been dimly hoping that the two were related and is disappointed that it isn't. He has no good explanation for the way his skin always feels like it's on fire; he's stopped scratching because all he was doing was making himself bleed.

"Peaceful explorers," Sid muses from somewhere behind him, dry sarcasm dripping from his voice. "You were very well-armed for 'peaceful exploration.'"

Lorne sighs. "Well, sometimes we run into situations like this."

It's not a helpful answer -- snark is not what is called for here. But he's on his edge and he knows it and better to let it out now instead of later, when the pressure is on.

"Your _playground_ is no longer so much fun?"

It's Lorne's turn to chuff a laugh. " _My_ playground. If it were my playground, I'd stop getting kidnapped and tied to chairs."

"Don't mock me, Lantean," Sid warns, a spike of menace underneath the silky words. And then he say something in a language Lorne can identify, but not understand. Which doesn't ease him any because why is Sid speaking _Ancient_?

Lorne isn't sure if he's supposed to respond to whatever Sid said (he can't) or admit that he doesn't understand it. Or if the wise course is to not even confess that he knows what language it is. If in doubt, play dumb. Because he's starting to suspect that this is yet another time when those oh-so-wacky Ancients are going to end up being more of a pain than a help.

"Why have you brought your menagerie to Thador, Lantean?" Sid continues when Lorne says nothing. "Did you think that we would not know you after so many generations? Did you think to hide yourself among your creations and we would not see the danger?"

If Sid thinks he's an Ancient, then how did he draw that conclusion? From interrogating one of the others or through technology -- Lorne has long ago passed the point where it's old hat to be identified by his damned ATA gene. And is Sid an Ancient? Have they come across the descendants of some enclave that hid from the Wraith? Was there some Ancient schism? Is Sid angry that his ancestors didn't get Atlantis in the divorce? And what's up with the animal references? Considering that they've got werewolves patrolling their forests, Sid really shouldn't be one to talk. Even if Lorne knew what the hell he was referring to.

Fingers snap by his left ear and Lorne jumps (as far as he can being tied to the chair) and opens his eyes. "Answer me."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lorne says after taking a deep breath. "So I can't answer you."

"Why have you come here?" Sid repeats and there's no more cajoling, just coldness. Lorne braces himself because this is the end of the soft sell and the hard sell usually begins with something that's going to leave him with an aching jaw.

"We're peaceful explorers, just wandering around the galaxy," he replies, looking straight ahead. He doesn't want to close his eyes any more, even if it's still too much to see and hear at once. "You can like the answer or not like the answer, but it won't change."

As if on cue, cool fingers grip his jaw hard enough to hurt as Sid turns his head to face him. "The half-breed monster is comely, granted, but we know her for what she is. Just as we know you for what you are. Now, what is your purpose here? Before my patience is tried beyond repair."

Lorne yanks his chin free (or, rather, Sid lets him go) and he turns away. Sid means Teyla, means her Wraith DNA, and Lorne tries to adjust, to make all of this make sense. To focus on the fact that Sid said "is" and not "was."

"What do you want me to say?" Lorne asks, tired all of a sudden; his headache is only getting worse with all of this stress and aural input. His adrenaline surge is AWOL, gone with the realization that this isn't going to be cleared up by some simple explanations, that this isn't just a mix-up -- or, rather, it _is_ a mix-up and the other folks aren't interested in unscrewing it. "If I'm going to have to lie, I might as well come up with something that makes you happy. So tell me what you want me to say."

Sid laughs.

"Are the others safe?" Lorne asks when nothing else is forthcoming. "Are they being held here, too?"

"Your compatriots are here," Sid replies, surprising Lorne, who wasn't expecting an answer. "Your followers as well, even the half-breed monstrosity."

"She's not a monster," Lorne bites back. He wonders if Sid would care if he knew that Lorne isn't an Ancient, isn't even a descendant of one the way Sheppard and Reletti are. That he is as much a _creation_ as Teyla. "She's a better person than you'll ever be."

Sid pulls the chair he was sitting in close to Lorne, then sits again so that their knees are almost touching. "Has time taught your people humility, Lantean?" he asks with what Lorne is almost tempted to call curiosity. "Has the weight of years and failure dragged you down from your thrones? Pulled you down from your would-be godhood to see the wreckage of your hubris?"

Lorne wonders, not for the first time, what sort of history the Ancients conveniently lost when they packed up Atlantis. They confessed to the big oopsie that was the Wraith, but how much more is there? Was this planet, Thador, once part of their empire gone rogue or were they always enemies? Because that's what this has to be -- a grudge that spans millennia. He knows better than to think that old enmities would fade with time. These people have hated the Ancients for at least the last ten thousand years and the odds are that their current reasons are only peripherally related to the original ones.

"Can I see them?" Lorne asks.

"When you tell me why you are here."

They go back and forth, around and sideways, sometimes with inveigling and sometimes with a fist, until they are back where they started.

"We will kill them," Sid tells him calmly, standing up. "Starting with the half-breed monster, moving on to the men who believe you their gods."

The irony of spending his first years in the Stargate Program saying the very same thing (except for the threats of murder) does not escape him. But the right answer is, repeatedly.

"Don't you think I'd have changed my story by now?" Lorne asks plaintively. He's tired, he's sore, he's thirsty, and his nerves are as raw as the skin under his bindings. "We came in peace."

"You could not have come in peace," Sid says calmly. "We simply have yet to discover why you _have_ come."

Sid says something in another language to the two giants by the door and they approach and Lorne is too wrung out not to shrink back a little in his chair. Hans presses a button on a control attached to his belt and Lorne's wrists are free, at least from the chair. Franz grabs them before he can do anything and Lorne winces and stifles a groan at the firm pressure on sore skin. The cuffs are soft, but they come together like magnets and might as well be steel for all that Lorne can get them apart.

While Hans aims a weapon at Lorne's chest, Franz pulls him up and pushes him toward the door, one beefy hand on his shoulder. Lorne is frankly too relieved that he hasn't been knocked out again that he stumbles along. They stop in front of Sid.

"I hope that you are more forthcoming when next we talk," Sid says.

The walk back to his cell is unremarkable. He's not blindfolded, but it makes no difference. The halls are identical and unremarkable and while Lorne does his best to keep track of his right turns and his left turns, Hans and Franz are bypassing enough locks and alarms that it almost seems pointless.

They come to a door and stop and Hans pushes Lorne toward it without it opening up. Lorne holds out his bound hands to protect his face, but there's no impact. Instead, he goes _through_ the door, stumbling as his hands come apart and he stops, off-balance in more ways than just literal, and looks around at a large room and the occupants inside.

Sheppard, looking far worse than Lorne feels, smiles weakly. "Was wondering when you'd show."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Cast of Characters/the Big List of OCs (because there are more than seven people in Atlantis and they all have names)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/372765)

Lorne looks around, taking a quick head count, and sees that everyone is there. The relief is palpable, even if the situation is familiar for all the wrong reasons.

"Everyone okay?"

"Close enough," Sheppard says, voice a little rough. "Can't say that this is going down as a prime vacation spot, though."

If it were anyone else, Lorne would be inclined to take the gallows humor as a positive sign. But Sheppard makes Reletti's stoicism look like soap opera theatrics, so he knows better. This is coming too close in a sequence of imprisonments where Sheppard has been forced to watch his men (and woman) suffer ill treatment; this has to be killing him. 

"We're okay, sir," Ortilla offers from across the room. "Just bored off our asses."

Ortilla and Suarez are sitting near Reletti, who has his head down between his knees. Sheppard looks awful and while Lorne is sure that he could slot it in to the sliding scale of all of the times they've brought Sheppard back in pieces, he'd rather not. Ronon is near Teyla and a drawn McKay; Ronon has cleaned up from the last time Lorne saw him, which was under three werewolf creatures and bleeding heavily. Yoni is already standing and Lorne can tell by the look on his face that 'no' is not an acceptable answer to a demand to examine him. 

"They're going after the gene carriers," Lorne murmurs, realization hitting like a smack upside the head. That's how Sid knew to call him a Lantean: because he was (is) affected by whatever they were doing. Of course. He'd really like there to be a time when having the ATA gene works _for_ them instead of against them. If it's working in proportion to their affinity for Ancient technology, then Sheppard would be hit hardest, followed by Reletti because nobody's as close to Ancient as Sheppard is, and then himself and McKay because they only have the gene through artificial induction. 

"I'm okay," he says as Yoni approaches while pointing imperiously toward an unoccupied corner. Lorne follows him. "I've just had a headache for a couple of weeks and itch like mad."

He'll leave the temporary deafness and dalliance with madness aside for now. 

"Eight days," Yoni says as he cups Lorne's chin gently and turns his face to look at the small cut Sid opened up under his left eye. 

" _Eight days_?!" Lorne turns in his grip to look back at him. "That's _it_?"

He knows he's lost all sense of time, but he thought he'd been in the right ballpark at least. He never would have guessed less than two weeks; it had felt like closer to four. 

"Could be off by a day," Yoni says as he turns Lorne's head again, the touch so completely unlike that of Sid's grasp that he doesn't even flinch at the identical gesture. "Ronon is sure that we're not off more than that. We estimate ten days since we left home."

Lorne doesn't ask how Ronon knows with such certitude.

Apparently satisfied with his exam -- there's not much he can _do_ about the cut and it's stopped bleeding down his cheek -- Yoni takes a step back. "Close your eyes and hold your arms out, then touch your nose with your fingertips."

Lorne cocks an eyebrow at him because he knows what that's a test for. "There's no head injury," he says. "I'm not concussed."

Yoni gives him the flat look of annoyance he saves for uncooperative patients. "You've had more than a week's exposure to something that is affecting your nervous system," he says, making a 'get on with it' gesture with his hand.

Lorne swallows a comment on how he's got a higher pain tolerance than McKay and no reason to be as sick as Sheppard or Reletti because from there the only way leads to a discussion of his week of silence and he'd rather save that conversation for the debrief. Especially if Sheppard's in as bad a shape as he looks -- even if only for comfort, they need plausible deniability that one of the officers is fit for command. 

He complies with Yoni's order, opening his eyes in surprise when he misses his nose with his left index finger after successfully poking himself in the shnozz with his right. Yoni's expression is more 'I-told-you-so' than outright concern, so Lorne doesn't react except to sigh. He submits to the rest of Yoni's impromptu neurological exam with mixed results. 

"It'll keep," Yoni says. "We'll track any changes."

Lorne nods. "How bad are they?" he asks quietly, because the room isn't so large and while it's the obvious topic of conversation and everyone knows Lorne is going to ask, he doesn't know what Yoni has been telling the others. 

"Nutrition is becoming a problem and neurological deterioration is far too rapid for my comfort," Yoni answers with a grimace. "The vertigo is profound enough that walking without vomiting is a challenge and there will be other effects the longer they go without being able to keep anything down. I can't do anything for them besides palliative care and that won't last. We need to get them out of here."

"I know," Lorne agrees with a sigh. And it's a surer knowledge than it otherwise might have been, courtesy of his interrogation. As intentionally confounding as his captivity has been -- the relatively comfortable confines versus Sid's unassailable hatred of what he thinks Lorne is... Lorne doesn't think that Sid would let Sheppard and Reletti go because they are so ill. Not when it seems like the entire purpose of the exercise is to ferret them out in the first place for special punishment. 

Lorne looks over at Sheppard, who is watching them with half-lidded eyes. Sheppard gives him a sort of wry smile, aware that they're talking about him. Lorne tilts his head slightly toward where the marines are sitting and Sheppard gives him the smallest of nods. 

"I'm gonna go check on the boys," he tells Yoni. 

Suarez and Ortilla perk up as he approaches. Reletti's still got his head down; he lifts it up enough to meet Lorne's gaze, then puts it back down a little too quickly and groans quietly. Suarez reaches behind himself for the towel that is probably serving as a barf bag, but Reletti mumbles something Lorne can't hear and Suarez drops the towel back where it was. 

"How're you doing, Sergeant?" he asks quietly, crouching down carefully because Yoni's right and his balance is off. Ortilla has a hand out to steady him, but it's not necessary. Lorne can see the same deceptively soft cuff on Ortilla's wrist that he has on his own. 

Reletti picks his head up again, more slowly this time, and gives him an embarrassed grin that doesn't quite work. "Been better, sir."

"He hasn't puked all day," Suarez offers wryly, aware of how little good news that is. 

"That's because he hasn't _eaten_ all day," Ortilla retorts. 

"He's right here," Reletti reminds them. "And he can hear you."

"He's shitty, sir," Ortilla continues, pointedly ignoring Reletti's glare. Within their team dynamic, Ortilla is the designated fusser by both rank and nature. But it's a tough love kind of fussing and Ortilla takes great pride in never showing his hand. "Same as the Colonel. It's worse than when the Genii grabbed us."

And that, of course, was a laugh riot. 

"At least we got Doc with us this time," Suarez says. 

Lorne is pretty sure that he's the only one who knows just how embarrassed Yoni is by the blind faith their team has in his medical skills. 

"How long have you guys been here?" Lorne asks instead of bringing up just how little Yoni thinks he can do here. He's obviously been doing enough, even if he can't fix anything. 

"Nine days is the estimate we're using, sir," Ortilla replies with a shrug. "Suarez, Teyla, Doc, and I have been here since the beginning. Ronon showed up a day later, Doctor McKay two days after that, Reletti a day after McKay, Colonel Sheppard three days ago, and now you."

Lorne nods. "I'm gonna go talk to Colonel Sheppard and get caught up and then we'll start figuring out a way to get the hell out of here now that the gang's all together," he says. As if it's just a matter of finding their way out of the facility and back to the stargate. 

He stands up with care and walks toward Sheppard, making sure to pass close to Ronon, Teyla and McKay. They are sitting together, apart from Sheppard because Sheppard has undoubtedly ordered them away, but not far enough as to make it look like obedience is winning over concern. McKay's pale and his eyes are glassy, but it's really the quiet that's disturbing to Lorne. McKay has never been known to contextualize his suffering -- if he's uncomfortable, that others might be more so is irrelevant. But instead of complaint, he only offers Lorne a half-grin that might almost be counted as understanding, or at least conspiratorial. In this bizarre caste system of misery, he and Lorne share a rung and this is his tacit recognition of that. 

Teyla looks proud and worried, but not for herself. Lorne doesn't think that he was the only one to have Teyla's genetics thrown in his face, but he doesn't think anyone's mentioned it to her. (He's not sure if the marines actually know the specifics of Teyla's spidey-sense; it's not general knowledge, but the three of them know a lot of things that aren't.) Better that way, at least for now. Ronon grunts acknowledgement. 

Lorne drops down next to Sheppard by sliding his back along the soft-hard wall. "Well, here's another fine mess we've gotten ourselves into."

They can't speak openly -- they're undoubtedly being watched -- but they've certainly had practice at circumlocution. 

Sheppard grins. "It's kind of hard to plead mistaken identity when all they care about is one bit of the DNA and not the rest." 

_They think we're Ancients and we can't convince them otherwise. Being related at all is enough._

"I guess this is why the database was so oblique," Lorne says. Across the room, Yoni is sitting by himself, which is hardly unexpected. Ortilla has undoubtedly been monitoring Yoni's alone-time; his fussing is not restricted to Suarez and Reletti and he'll bully Yoni and Lorne with impunity, if also with respect. "You gotta wonder what the hell went on back in the day for this kind of hatred to last."

 _Did they taunt you about the 'lesser beings' you brought with you? Is Teyla safe? Are the others? Are_ we _?_

"It's certainly different from the usual reception," Sheppard says. His voice is low and rough and Lorne isn't sure if he should be relieved or worried that it's probably from the constant sickness and not shouting himself hoarse. "I think they share a lot of the same questions we've wondered in our darker moments."

_They hate the Ancients for playing God, for populating a galaxy they couldn't protect. For creating the Wraith. For disappearing._

"Do you think they know what happened?" Lorne stretches out his legs, careful not to accidentally jostle Sheppard. 

_Do you think they know the Ancients fled to Earth instead of going down with their ship?_

Sheppard makes a sour face. "I don't think so."

_I hope not._

They're quiet for a little while then and Lorne looks around as Sheppard seemingly dozes. The room is large enough so that nine people aren't on top of each other, but not so large that there isn't a sense of closed-in confinement. Unlike his own cell, this one has a separate bathroom; Lorne can see the edge of a sink through an open doorway. He wonders how meal distribution works here; waiting for all of them to sleep at once is impractical, if not impossible. Lorne wouldn't be surprised if the healthy are sitting watch overnight. 

The marines have their own decks of cards (as far as Lorne knows, the only ones who didn't have cards in their packs were Teyla, Ronon, and McKay) and Suarez and Ortilla are apparently trying to teach Teyla to play poker, something that would be outright hysterical in another context but it still amusing here. They have nothing to bet with, of course, and Teyla has trouble remembering the hierarchy of winning hands and the rules of what is some variation of seven-card stud. Eventually McKay joins them, snide words about card-counting and mathematical advantages lacking their usual bite, and a game begins with a second deck used as chips. Teyla has enlisted Reletti as her partner and Suarez warns her that Reletti has no luck because he loses at dice to anthropologists, but they seem to be holding their own. From their various points around the room, Yoni and Ronon are watching them, resisting the occasional entreaties to join in. The marines offer to bring the game across the room if either Lorne or Sheppard want to play, but Sheppard declines and Lorne tells them he'll maybe play later. 

With the quiet chatter of the poker game in the background, Sheppard's more alert. In small bits, he tells Lorne more about what he's learned about their circumstances and what life is like in this communal cell. The former is more confirmation of what Lorne has suspected and the latter becomes very relevant when the lights suddenly go out. 

"Fuck," Suarez sighs from across the room.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Cast of Characters/the Big List of OCs (because there are more than seven people in Atlantis and they all have names)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/372765)

When the lights come back on, Lorne blinks stupidly and looks around. Sheppard is gone from next to him, as is Reletti from across the room, and there is a tray in the center of the room with what is probably dinner (lunch, breakfast, whatever) on it.

"Fuck," Suarez says again. He balls up the towel next to him and throws it angrily at the spot where Reletti had been. Ortilla holds out a hand in a stopping motion and Suarez sits back with disgust. "Why do they keep taking him? He's a fucking grunt -- he's not _supposed_ to know anything."

"They're nothing if not consistent," McKay says sourly. "They've got us ranked by our genetic makeup and they don't care if we follow a different system."

Beyond the obvious frustration, Lorne feels the edges of despair and that worries him more. Suarez isn't making cracks about Reletti's intelligence or the lack thereof and McKay isn't either relieved or offended that he wasn't taken. This is getting perilously close to resignation and that's far too close to defeat.

"Let them underestimate us. We'll just have to use that to our advantage," Lorne says, knowing it sounds a little trite even as it's true. He and Sheppard had been talking loosely around the idea before the lights had gone out, not getting anywhere useful but at least verifying that they both thought it would be the best chance of getting them home. "It's not like Colonel Sheppard and Sergeant Reletti don't have plenty of experience confounding others, especially those trying to get useful answers out of them."

He gets a weak grin from Teyla for that.

The meal, some sort of meat stew doled out of a common pot by Suarez and Ortilla, is quiet at first, everyone concentrating on eating and worrying about Sheppard and Reletti. Lorne is, too, but it's also been a very long time since he's eaten and the low blood sugar is making his headache worse. He eats carefully and slowly, caring less about the taste (which is vaguely familiar and completely unremarkable) than that it's warm and filling. He sips his tea and, seeing that everyone else is either finished or close to it, asks how much anyone has seen of the building they're in (not much, just the hallways) and that moves them toward a discussion of the security measures and the remote controls that seem to operate everything.

"It's your basic remote control, operating through modulated frequencies," McKay says, pushing bread around in his bowl with his fingers. 

"Like a clicker for a TV, sir?" Suarez asks, wiping his fingers carefully before picking up his tea glass. Suarez's fastidiousness when eating does not come at the expense of how quickly he can put it away.

"It's probably not an infrared diode," McKay replies. Lorne hasn't missed the patience McKay's been exhibiting with everyone else; he doesn't know the scientist well enough to appreciate what it might mean apart from fewer arguments and it's not something he can really ask Sheppard about, although he doesn't doubt for a second that Sheppard knows precisely what it means. "But, essentially, yes. Radio would be the obvious choice for signal transmission, something light years ahead of anything we brought with us."

Their radios are not-available-to-the-Pentagon super-charged MBITRs, fancy and expensive toys that Lorne doesn't understand except how to work them and that Ortilla takes apart and repairs with ease.

"So if we were to... acquire one," Teyla muses aloud, "We would be able to use it."

McKay makes a sour face. "Maybe. They could have some sort of genetic component."

"Half of what we have at home has a genetic component," Yoni points out, not looking up from where he's apparently conducting surgery with his spoon on something in his bowl. Yoni, despite what he thinks, is a picky eater, so Lorne can imagine any of a half-dozen possibilities for what's offending his culinary sensibilities this time. "The question is whether it is in that class of technology that requires a constant connection to the genetic marker or whether it merely needs activation."

In terms of Atlantis, the items that need someone with the gene to use them tend to be either weapons or weapons-related (say, the jumpers and the control chair). Essential systems need activation, but will run on their own. Navigational tools -- doors, transporters -- don't need the gene at all. If this place is anything like Atlantis....

"We just need to get out," Lorne says. "We don't need to start a war."

Escaping without weapons is somewhere between foolhardy and wishful thinking, but he's willing to promote pie-in-the-sky thinking right now. The mental lethargy will get them nowhere. 

"Stargate's gone," Ronon reminds them between shoveling spoonfuls into his mouth.

"We've been away from home for, what, ten days?" Lorne asks, warming to the chance to hope, to get others to hope as well. "That's enough time for the cavalry to saddle up."

For all that the SGC is largely inured to teams going missing off-world, either in Pegasus or at home, the urgency ratchets up when there's no lock on the stargate. No stargate connectivity for ten days... _someone_ is coming for them. Ten days is enough time for a call to Earth and the authorization of either the recall of the _Daedalus_ or the loan of the _Odyssey_.

"We're forgetting about a little problem," McKay says, putting his bowl down. "Acquisition."

"You and I are probably next," Lorne says, shrugging with a casualness he doesn't feel. "We'll have to see what we can do."

McKay gawps at him.

They've been cognizant all along that they are probably being watched, that their words are being dissected. Not mentioning Atlantis at all is second nature by now and most of the rest only requires a little more thought because they've all had to deal with OpSec before. But Lorne isn't afraid that they'll get into trouble if their plans are overheard. He's starting to think that their captors simply don't believe that they're capable of being a threat.

"Big, burly guards, handcuffs... any of this ringing a bell?" McKay asks, voice high.

"I have faith in you both," Teyla says with assurance, smiling fondly at McKay, who glowers at her and then quickly looks down because McKay's no more immune to Teyla than anyone else.

"You're as crazy as he is, Major," he mutters and Lorne can't hide the grin.

They finish eating and collect their bowls and spoons. Ronon has already tried to hide one away -- they took all of his knives -- but was forced to return it after they went a day without food as punishment. There is stew and bread and tea left for Reletti and Sheppard, although nobody has much faith in either of them being able to eat much (any) of it. Teyla tells Lorne that the tray will stay until after both men are returned, which is good because Lorne is long past the point where the whole hit-the-lights routine is even vaguely entertaining. He closes his eyes for a while, enjoying that his headache has quieted a notch and, with his stomach full, he feels the prickly itch of his skin less acutely. 

Sheppard comes back to them first, thrown through the door and landing awkwardly on the floor with a grunt and muttered curses. Ronon is there first to help him up, half-carrying him back to the corner from which he'd been taken.

"How are you doing?" Lorne asks after Yoni's given him a quick once-over, mostly for form's sake because it's completely obvious that Sheppard is not doing well. He's pale and exhausted and he accepts without looking up the wet cloth Teyla offers him.

"I don't think I'm ever going on a tilt-a-whirl again," Sheppard replies after he wipes his face, looking marginally better for it. Teyla returns with a glass full of tea and Sheppard thanks her.

"Make sure that you drink it while it is hot," she tells him. "It will soothe your throat."

Sheppard grins up at her with amused affection that almost covers up his misery. "Yes, Mom."

They sit quietly for a little bit, Sheppard sipping his tea and taking deep breaths, and everyone else watches and waits.

"They think we're here to invade," Sheppard says. He's not ready to speak, eyes still slipping closed and back pressed up against the wall like his world is still spinning. Probably is. But everyone else needs to see that he's still some value of 'okay' and if he can't do that in deed, then he can at least talk. "They think we were sent to scout out the place."

McKay scoffs. "Because we look like a vanguard?"

In the twisted Thadorian mindset, they probably do, Lorne has realized. Eight armed men, four of whom are of Lantean descent, and one woman who is part Wraith. Lorne has never begrudged them the mistaken identification. He's just pissed off that they won't accept that appearances can be deceiving.

"We don't exactly look like peaceful explorers carrying rifles," Sheppard replies with a frustration that has nothing to do with his words and everything to do with the circumstances, personal and team, that are beyond his control. "They're still reeling at the thought that their ancient enemy isn't dead after all, so they're not thinking too clearly. So it makes perfect sense to them that the first item on the Lantean agenda is to pick up where they left off ten thousand years ago and re-start a war."

"The Ancestors had a lot of enemies," Ronon says. The Ori invasion of the Milky Way can't be mentioned aloud, but it doesn't need to be.

"They _have_ a lot of enemies," Ortilla corrects. "We're just the most convenient target."

There's not much to say to that, so they fall silent again. Yoni is playing some ridiculously complicated version of solitaire ("patience," he calls it) that has drawn spectators and Suarez as a sarcastic commentator and would-be assistant. Sheppard drinks his tea in small sips and starts to lose a little of the seasick weariness, which Lorne tries to find comfort in because the alternative is worrying about Reletti.

"He'll be okay," Sheppard says. Lorne turns from where he's watching Yoni slap Suarez's hands away from his cards. "He's probably giving them lessons on how you can use 'fuck' for every single part of speech."

Lorne isn't worried about Reletti's ability to take whatever's given out to him. He's worried that Reletti will pay for his ignorance about the Ancients. Suarez wasn't wrong -- Reletti isn't privy to most of what Sid wants to know. It has nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with the fact that Reletti is on the bottom rung of a military command structure and it's not his _job_ to know.

Lorne sighs. "I'll feel better when we get him back."

"Me, too," Sheppard agrees. 

After a while, once Sheppard's movements become less clutching for balance and more coordinated, McKay brings over food and more tea. Sheppard groans.

"Eat something so the crazy doctor over there doesn't have an excuse to go Jack Torrance on us," McKay implores plaintively, gesturing with his head to where Yoni is sitting.

"Hey!" Lorne feels obligated to protest, although he knows that McKay's just using bitchiness to cover up for his concern for Sheppard. 

Perhaps sensing the attention, Yoni looks up from his card game and cocks an eyebrow. Lorne nods to him and Yoni returns to fending off Suarez. 

Sheppard, meanwhile, grins and picks up his tea glass. "Redrum, redrum," he sings softly. McKay glares at him, a look completely devoid of actual irritation, and goes back to his 'spot'.

Sheppard's grin fades and he frowns at the food before him. He sighs and picks up the bowl, dipping his bread into the stew, taking small bites, and eventually a few spoonfuls ("Safir scares me"), but that's it. He tells Lorne to put the rest back in the pot if there's not enough for Reletti (as if Reletti's going to have more of an appetite) or give it to McKay or Ronon or someone who wants to eat. Ronon takes the bowl off of Lorne's hands and he doesn't find out its eventual destination because before he can get back to his seat, Reletti is tossed through the door. 

Reletti lands like a sack of potatoes and doesn't move and Yoni is there right away, everyone else keeping a little bit of distance so that he can work unencumbered. Reletti is curled awkwardly on his side, his back to the room, and Yoni's face is grave as he kneels over him... until it suddenly isn't. 

"You _putz_ ," Yoni hisses and that's their cue to relax because they can distinguish between most of Yoni's verbal expressions of annoyance and that's him being _relieved_. And annoyed, but mostly relieved. 

Behind Lorne, Ortilla exhales loudly and it sounds like a sigh. 

"Sorry, Doc," Reletti says in a low voice. He moves slowly, accepting Yoni's help to sit up. Lorne edges past Teyla to come around to Yoni's side and crouches, teetering a little but not enough to need support. Reletti still looks like crap and he's got a bruise on his cheekbone, but his eyes are lively and alert and he grins at Lorne. 

"Brought you back a present, sir," he says, holding out his right hand. Lorne pretends to miss that it shakes slightly because in Reletti's paw is a remote control.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Cast of Characters/the Big List of OCs (because there are more than seven people in Atlantis and they all have names)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/372765)

Lorne looks down at the remote in his hand. "How did you pull this off?"

Reletti gives him an innocent look. "Improvised, sir."

Lorne cocks an eyebrow because that could mean anything coming from Reletti, who is one of the few Atlantis marines to come to them from Force Recon. They don't have a lot of recon marines mostly because recon marines tend not to want to leave their units, but Reletti didn't have much of a choice once he'd tested positive for the ATA gene.

"Care to elaborate?" Lorne asks, knowing he'll probably regret the answer, but it's important to know if they've got a new reason to worry.

"Strategic puking, sir." Reletti admits wryly. "I aimed."

Ronon chuckles and McKay sighs with disgust.

"Well, if you're gonna do it, might as well make it count," Suarez says from behind Yoni.

Lorne stands up, the remote in his palm. "Think you can eat something?"

Reletti makes a face. With the initial burst of excitement gone, he's starting to fade a little. "Do I have to?"

"Yes," Yoni answers. He stands and turns, snapping his fingers and gesturing. "Suarez, be useful."

Ortilla comes over as well and, between the two of them, they half-drag, half-carry a stumbling Reletti back to their corner.

Teyla watches them, then turns to Lorne and Yoni. "Should we make preparations to leave immediately, or should we give Colonel Sheppard and Sergeant Reletti more time to recover?"

Lorne looks over at Sheppard, who has been watching the whole exchange from his corner, not moving at all. Reletti could clearly use some time to recover, at least to the point where he can get some food or water down. But Sheppard's already had hours and isn't significantly improved, at least not to the point where he can participate in an escape. "We'll take enough time to figure out our next step, but I don't think time is on either our sides or theirs."

He goes over to Sheppard, holding out the remote and sitting down. If he and McKay _are_ next, he doesn't want it on his person when the lights go out. He'd rather they be gone before that happens, but there's no guarantee.

Sheppard takes it, looking it over. It's vaguely reminiscent of the GDOs they use to send their IDCs, except the buttons don't have numbers on them.

"We should maybe head away from the direction we've been taken," Sheppard says, letting the remote drop into his lap. None of them have pockets -- Lorne is happier not dwelling on where Reletti was storing that thing -- but it can be rolled out of sight quickly enough. "I don't remember seeing much in the way of exit signs or stairwells."

It hadn't taken long to realize that they had all been interrogated in the same room, although not all by the same person.

"Do we even know if we're above ground?" Lorne asks, knowing that the answer is no. They aren't sure if they're even on the same planet as before, although all of them suspect that they are.

Getting the remote had been such a pipe-dream that it had been easy to think of it as an end instead of as a beginning, which is what it was. The actual act of _escaping_ was far more complicated and Lorne rued his headache for taking away enough of his focus that he fears missing something basic.

Nevertheless, the to-do list isn't that hard: organizing their group for maximum speed and protection, getting out of the facility, and either getting back to the werewolf forest so that they can be found by the _Daedalus_ or, even better, getting to wherever the Thadorians are hiding the damned stargate.

"We'll probably need a guide," Sheppard says. "I don't trust our luck in this place to just stumble on the way home."

"Yeah," Lorne agrees. 'Guide' is a comfortable euphemism for 'hostage'. Lorne has already considered the idea, which is more difficult than impractical. Not _wrong_ , because while Lorne isn't quite ready to authorize lethal force as the first response, he's long past sympathy. But the fact of it is that getting a hostage means overwhelming someone quickly and while normally that's not a problem, this time it means factoring in who is going to be carrying Reletti and Sheppard. Because the two of them will need at least one man a piece to get them anywhere, probably two per, and they're not that big a group.

"Make sure I don't fall over, please," Sheppard mutters as he pushes himself up into a standing position. Lorne watches, fighting all of his instincts to hold out a hand to support Sheppard because this, too, is part of the plan. He can hear Sheppard whimper once under his breath as he fights back the vertigo enough to walk. His first few steps are like a drunk's stumbling, but he straightens out and makes a smug face at his team, all of whom have risen in anticipation of having to catch his fall.

Sheppard's sweating a little by the time he crosses the room to sit near the marines, but he's made it across under his own power and Lorne can see the relief in everyone's faces.

"I would have come over, sir," Reletti says. He's holding his own, not as animated as he was when he handed over the remote, but not as awful as he'd looked when Lorne had first arrived.

"Yeah, but this way you're not puking on anyone," Suarez tells him, holding a bowl of steaming stew. "Eat something so we can get outta here, dude."

"I thought you didn't want me puking," Reletti mutters, but accepts the bowl.

While Reletti mostly pretends to eat, Sheppard and Lorne open up a discussion on getting out. They don't have enough intel to formulate a real plan, but Sheppard can give what is essentially the commander's intent statement (end result: getting home with minimal contact with the Thadorians) and he and Lorne can explain what are acceptable and preferable means of accomplishing it. They're going out with nothing but spoons and they can't afford an engagement of any kind.

Lorne tells Ortilla and Ronon that they're responsible for keeping Reletti moving and Yoni will take Sheppard. It's a matter of size more than anything -- Reletti (who is heavier and needs more assistance than Sheppard) gets two men of roughly equal size to each other; Sheppard can stumble along by leaning on Yoni (who is the only other man present taller than Sheppard). Suarez and Teyla are pulling security, Lorne is directing the mission, and McKay is taking the remote.

With that, Sheppard actually gives McKay the remote. McKay makes unreadable noises of contemplation as he looks it over. "It shouldn't be that hard," he finally says. "The only two-button sequence was the door to this place and consensus is that it's not the same two buttons, so we're down to seventy-two possibilities. Fortunately, this is the lock that we have the most time to disengage."

"Let's get started, then," Sheppard says. "Sergeant Suarez, you'll help Doctor McKay with getting the door open -- I want you holding the remote in case the lights go out. Ronon and Teyla, you and Staff Sergeant Ortilla scour the room looking for anything we can use for weapons. Nine spoons and a ladle isn't a lot to work with, but it's a start. Doc, whatever you can do to get Sergeant Reletti mobile, do it."

"And you as well," Yoni retorts with a frown.

"And me, too," Sheppard agrees with a smirk, "but I'm at least able to stumble around on my own... Stow it, Sergeant. We both know what's going to happen if you stand up right now."

Reletti glowers at the stew bowl in his lap, but doesn't protest further. Lorne feels no pity for him.

Ronon gets up first and then everyone else swings into action. McKay winds up by the door after giving (too detailed and mostly unnecessary) instructions to Suarez on the order of combinations he wants to try while Teyla a stacks the eight spoons not in use and the ladle in a bowl. There's clanking and banging from the bathroom as Ortilla and Ronon test the assemblage for anything they can break down.

Sheppard stands up again, carefully and holding out a hand near the wall. He takes a deep breath and lets it go slowly.

"Where are you going?" Yoni asks as he returns from the bathroom with two glasses of water. "Sit down and drink."

Sheppard frowns at the offered glass. "That didn't help too much last time, Doc."

"It helped enough," Yoni retorts. "You just didn't like needing help getting to and from the toilet. Now sit and drink."

Both men, too used to losing fights to Yoni, do. Lorne can't help but be amused.

Reletti successfully gets Yoni to let him give up on the stew in exchange for finishing his bread and another glass of water. Teyla takes the bowl and spoon and, after cleaning the latter, adds it to the collection. Ronon and Ortilla are finished in the bathroom, having failed to pry the shelf loose (they've apparently been working on it since the first day), and join Lorne and Sheppard near Reletti. Yoni goes to look for towels to tear into strips because they're going to be running around barefoot and there will undoubtedly be an injury because of it.

They're shredding towels and putting their spare clothes over their current ones when McKay lets loose an exulted cry. The door is still there, but his arm is _through_ it. "Sergeant, don't forget that sequence!"

"I won't, sir," Suarez promises. "Believe me."

Sheppard looks over at Lorne. "You ready to blow this popsicle stand?"

"Hell, yeah," Lorne replies.

Once the towels are done, Teyla distributes spoons (two each for Ortilla, Ronon, Suarez, and herself, and one to Lorne) and keeps the ladle. Ortilla and Ronon each take one of Reletti's arms and put it around their shoulders, Yoni does the same for Sheppard, and Suarez looks to Lorne.

"Let's go, Sergeant," he tells Suarez. "Move when ready."


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Cast of Characters/the Big List of OCs (because there are more than seven people in Atlantis and they all have names)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/372765)

They move through the hallways silently and surprisingly quickly once they get their rhythm going, especially now that McKay has figured out that every locked door is opened by the same key. Suarez is in front, checking every doorway and intersection and never moving too far ahead. McKay is next, since he's got the remote, and Lorne is with him because even if McKay isn't saying anything, Lorne can still see the fear in his eyes and so he tries to be a presence, if not necessarily actual protection armed only with a spoon and half a decade of haphazard hand-to-hand training. He feels naked in a way that has nothing to do with his bare feet. It's like a cross between a horror movie ( _don't go in there!_ ) and those nightmares where you're walking around your high school without your pants.

Yoni and Sheppard are behind them, Yoni more guiding than supporting Sheppard, and behind them are Ronon, Ortilla, and Reletti. Reletti isn't steady enough on his feet to avoid being mostly carried by the other two, but they haven't had to stop for him to be sick, so Lorne will call it even. Teyla is bringing up the rear, although Lorne can't see her past the trio in between.

They don't know if the building is underground or just the floor they're on or if it's just windowless. No matter why, they have no real way of telling directionality or progress. Reletti is their team's best scout, but Suarez knows what he's doing and he's being careful not to lead them in circles. (Ronon isn't as good indoors as out, Lorne knows, plus he's half of Reletti's forward momentum.)

A raised fist signals a stop and Suarez indicates that he's going to check out what's inside an open doorway to their right. Lorne moves up to cover him, gesturing for McKay to stay where he is. Yoni leaves Sheppard leaning on the wall next to McKay and joins Lorne in the doorway. Suarez circles around the desk of what looks like someone's office; the lights are off, which would be odd in normal circumstances, but Lorne's gotten too used to Atlantis turning off the lights in his office when he goes down the hall to find someone or gets sidetracked en route to the supply closet.

Suarez moving carefully and in absolute silence and Lorne respects his skill even as he wishes Suarez would move faster because he is heading toward a window. Suarez finally gets there and looks out and around and down, then turns and gestures for Lorne to join him. Yoni nods that he'll stay put and Lorne goes directly to where Suarez is standing.

They are definitely looking to go down rather than up or out. Definitely not out. Lorne can't even _see_ the ground, can only see the night skyline of a city that looks closer in size to Anchorage than Atlantis. There are a few other buildings as tall or taller, but he can't even guesstimate how far up they are. It's not as tall as looking out from the balcony behind the control room, but it's got to be at least fifty stories. Maybe twice that. It looks like they're in the middle of the city, which is just not helpful, and he can't see any place that might have the stargate. Granted, you can't see the stargate in Colorado Springs, either. There are identical tall, well-illuminated buildings at the edge of the city and Lorne tries to commit their upper features to memory so that they'll maybe have a landmark when they're lower down and outside. If they can't find the stargate, then maybe they can at least get out of the city until they do find it.

Either way, finding a hostage who can get them out has gone from 'good idea' to 'necessity.'

He sighs quietly and nods to Suarez, who is watching him and they both head back to where Yoni is waiting in the doorway. At Yoni's cocked eyebrow, he points downward and frowns and Yoni nods, like bad news is what he is expecting. Probably is.

Everyone is up against the wall when he emerges, eyes on him. Lorne goes over to Sheppard, tells him what he saw, and gets pretty much the same look as he'd gotten from Yoni. Neither Sheppard nor Reletti are improved any, so it's just a matter of getting everyone propped up before they continue on, looking for some way down from this skyscraper.

It's another hallway before they find a stairwell. It's not ideal, or even practical, but apparently all of their luck has been put toward not being found out instead of, say, finding an elevator. McKay helps Yoni with Sheppard and Ortilla and Ronon just pick Reletti's legs up and they start down. They stop when a spoon clatters to the floor, echoing loudly. They wait a moment to listen, but there's either nobody in the stairwell with them or no one thinks the noise is that unusual. And so they continue down.

Ten flights down and the stairs are no less impractical and Sheppard is getting too dizzy to move easily on his own.

"Scout the next floor," Lorne tells Suarez. They collect in the stairs below the landing, Sheppard and Reletti seated together and everyone else resting nearby.

"Five minutes," Lorne tells Suarez. They don't have watches, but they can one-Mississippi-two-Mississippi it close enough. "Try to find an elevator or a transporter."

"Aye aye, sir," Suarez replies, nods to Ortilla (Reletti is sitting with his eyes closed), and goes.

Lorne knows staying in one place isn't wise. Even if this is an office building after hours and there's nobody in the halls, they're going to be missed in their cell soon, if they haven't been yet.

"Did you see the stargate from the window, Major?" Teyla asks. She is sitting two steps below him and looks up.

"No," he replies. "My guess is that it's indoors somewhere."

Ronon looks skeptically at him. Back in the Milky Way, there are enough stargates tucked inside of temples or otherwise hidden from the sky that it's a viable notion, but in all of their adventures in Pegasus, the stargate has always been outdoors and Atlantis's interior gate is an oddity.

"Or perhaps it is back where it was when we passed through it," Teyla suggests, clearly not sold on the sheltered gate idea.

"Either way, we have to figure out how to get to it," Sheppard says in a low voice, barely audible.

They haven't discussed hostage-taking with anyone, although he's sure it has crossed at least Ronon's mind by now.

"Or our gear," McKay says. He's down at the bottom of the staircase. "The PDA can lead us to the gate through the energy readings."

"If it works here," Yoni points out. "It didn't work in the forest. If they are using technology to disable the Ancients," he gestures with his hand toward Reletti and Sheppard, "then it stands to reason that they are also disabling Ancient technology."

McKay sags and Lorne thinks that he forgot that the PDAs didn't work.

"Four minutes, sir," Ortilla announces. Lorne nods.

"Maybe we'll find a lab," Sheppard says. "There's enough technology involved in keeping us prisoner that they'll need to have some sort of repair room. You can cobble something together there."

McKay looks like he's going to say something snarky back, but whatever it gets swallowed by the opening of the door above them and the half-beat of held breaths and stopped hearts until they see that it's Suarez.

"I think I've got us something that'll get us downstairs, sir," Suarez says, dropping into a crouch to talk to Lorne even as everyone else is already working on standing up. "Not sure if it's an elevator or a transporter or something in between. But it's got sliding doors and buttons with stuff on them and it's the size of a closet."

Lorne grins wryly. "I guess that'll do," he says, pushing himself into standing up. "Good work, Sergeant."

"Thank you, sir." A grin accompanies the words and Lorne realizes that it's been a long time since any of them have had cause to smile for something that wasn't sarcasm or irony.

As they get everyone up again, Lorne wonders if the break did Sheppard and Reletti more harm than good. Neither looks especially well right now and Ortilla threatens Reletti with dire consequences if he hurls on him. Nevertheless, they get them back up the stairs mostly under their own power -- Reletti growls at the suggestion that he be lifted to the landing -- and through the door.

"It's two hallways over, sir," Suarez explains once they're all in the hallway, gesturing to the left. They start down the corridor, slowly at first until Sheppard and Reletti get used to moving again.

They make it down the first hallway and are about to turn into the second when Suarez halts them. From his hand signals, he sees someone.

Lorne looks over at Sheppard, who nods.

"Armed?" Lorne asks quietly. Suarez shakes his head no without turning around. "Can you take them?"

Suarez turns his head for a quick look back, as if to judge the seriousness of the request. "Sir?"

"Capture, not disable," Lorne explains. "We want someone who can get us out of here. If you need a hand, I'll send someone with you."

Suarez has turned back to face forward. "I'll take care of it, sir."

"Be careful," Lorne tells him, then pats his shoulder and Suarez slips around the corner. He turns back to the watching group.

"Ronon?" he gestures with his chin for Ronon to come over. Ortilla takes the bulk of Reletti's weight and Ronon does. "If you hear anything, go help Sergeant Suarez."

Ronon takes a look around the corner, then turns back and nods. There's a hard gleam in his eyes, almost predatory. He watches and waits and Lorne ignores the questioning looks coming from everyone not Sheppard until they hear a muffled whimper and Ronon disappears around the corner, appearing a moment later, followed by Suarez, who is guiding a terrified man with one hand twisted behind his back and the handle of one of Suarez's spoons pressed up against his throat.

Behind him, Lorne can hear Teyla gasp and Sheppard muttering directions to someone else. Lorne turns to Ronon. "Hold him."

Ronon grins at the man, who is probably in his fifties and who visibly quails as Ronon passes him, taking over for Suarez.

"I don't--" the man begins and Ronon clamps a huge hand over his mouth, squeezing his shoulder hard with the other.

"Speak quietly," Ronon tells him in a flat growl, "And only the truth."

He waits for the man to nod before removing the hand that was effectively covering both his nose and mouth. Taking a gasping breath, he looks at Lorne. "I don't know anything," he pleads in a desperate whisper. "I can't help you. Please. I have children."

Lorne holds his hands up, both to stop the begging and to keep Ronon from muzzling him again. "We don't want to hurt you," he says. "We just want to go home. Same as you do. You help us, we help you."

He ignored the illogic of that proposition.

"I can't--" Ronon squeezes his shoulder and the man freezes.

"Do you know the way out of here?" Lorne asks, making sure to keep his voice calm, despite the fear that they'll be discovered, that something will go wrong.

The man nods.

"Then you can help us," Lorne tells him. "Do you know where the stargate is?"

Where there'd been a flash of hope, now the man looks only fearful and confused. "The what?"

"The Ring," Lorne says, gesturing appropriately. "The Lantean transporter."

The man shakes his head, tears falling down his cheeks. "We have no Lantean technology here."

"Big circle, symbols around the edge, usually stays in the forest with the creatures?" Lorne prompts, although he's pretty sure the guy doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.

"Anything that comes from the planet is brought to the fifth sublevel," the man says in a tremulous voice.

So much for them being on the same world.

"Can you get us there?" Lorne asks quickly. They have to get moving.

"Yes, I guess, but I don't have the authorization," the man protests. "You need keys and--"

"Will this do?" McKay comes forward, holding the remote.

If it's possible, the man pales further. "Y-yes."

"Then let's go," Ronon growls, squeezing the man's shoulder until he whimpers, then letting go. Lorne glares at him and Ronon looks back challenging him.

"Go help Staff Sergeant Ortilla," Lorne tells him, not flinching. He knows this is mostly adrenaline on Ronon's part, maybe some reflex from when he was a Runner. It's not useful now. "Sergeant Suarez, escort our friend, please."

Ronon moves past him and McKay with body language that is both proud and sullen. He knows he's gone too far. Lorne doesn't care whether he's sorry, just that he stopped.

"We just want to go home," Lorne tells the man. "We don't want to hurt you -- or anyone else here. We just want to go. Help us and nothing is going to happen to you. Scream, fight, or fail to warn us about an alarm and we _will_ hurt you. Do you understand?"

The man nods, too shaken to speak.

"Sergeant, let's go."

Sheppard comes off of the wall himself, grinning at Yoni, who looks unimpressed and ducks so that he can pull Sheppard's arm across his shoulder. Ortilla and Ronon steady Reletti and Lorne gets a nod from Teyla, so he turns back to Suarez to give the go-ahead when there's a click and the lights go out.

"Fuck," Sheppard mutters.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Cast of Characters/the Big List of OCs (because there are more than seven people in Atlantis and they all have names)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/372765)

"--the _hell_?!?" Lorne hears Reletti rumble from somewhere off to his side.

The lights go on and Lorne sees Ortilla blinking back at him, looking as confused as Lorne feels. They are not in their cell. They are exactly where they were when the lights went out, still standing and still free. For values of 'free' that include still being barefoot and unable to get home.

"Did they forget to hit the reset button?" McKay asks, looking around.

Maybe the knock-out effect only works in the cells. While his first priority is getting the hell home, part of Lorne wishes that they could come back with the engineers and figure out how all of this technology works.

He turns to their hostage, who merely looks scared and worried.

"They know you've escaped," the man says simply.

Great. So much for their window of opportunity.

"We need to move," Ronon says, shifting Reletti's weight.

Lorne nods to Suarez, who pulls the hostage around in front of him and starts walking.

The rest of the way to the elevator is quiet and quick. When the door opens, they can see that it looks more like an elevator from Earth than the interior of the Atlantis transporters.

"This will take us down to the fifth sublevel," the man says, "But you'll need the key to authorize it."

They pile in and, with a nod from Lorne, the man pushes the button. Lorne figures it's the right one; the man is watching Ronon, twitching at every sudden move and Lorne knows that Ronon is aware of that, is maximizing that for effect.

Lorne doesn't like the power games or the fact that he's had to threaten and will have to back up those threats, but they don't have much in the way of options right now. They don't know who this man is -- he could be another inquisitor for all that they know, or someone else who is working toward their never getting home in one piece -- and they can't take chances.

"How many numbers in the sequence?" McKay asks, eyes on the console.

"Three," the man replies and Lorne feels his stomach turn. They don't have time to run through seven hundred combinations.

"What's the lowest floor where you don't need a key?" Sheppard asks. Because he's done the math already and knows the odds are crappy and the time short. If they have time at all. On Earth, the first thing that gets stopped in an emergency are the elevators.

"The sublevels are all key-encoded," the man says, shaking his head.

"Wonderful," Sheppard sighs. "How heavily guarded is the ground floor? Can we get past it on foot?"

The man shakes his head. "This is the Security Directorate. There are dozens of Monitors on duty at all times and the barracks is close by."

Great. Lorne hopes that this Directorate is run more along the lines of the NID headquarters than, say, the Stasi complex at Lichtenberg. Or even the Mountain. Because if this were there or NID? Lorne would happily take his chances breaking out the front door. Aliens have a great escape rate at both facilities.

"Can't get out, gotta go down," Sheppard says, rolling his neck carefully. He looks clear-headed, although Lorne knows he's still seeing everything like it's on a carousel because his eyes keep tracking sharply to the right. "Any progress, McKay?"

McKay has been punching in codes the entire time. "I'm sorry, but not even _I_ am good enough to hit the one-in-seven-hundred-tw--" he stops suddenly as the doors close. "Or maybe I am."

"Way to go, Doctor McKay," Suarez compliments sincerely. Lorne smiles to himself; the marines think McKay's an ingrate and a menace to himself as much as others, but they don't doubt his brilliance. Even when it's basically all luck. 

The elevator may look like an elevator, but there's no sense of motion except a faint shudder of the car and then the doors open before Lorne can even worry that there will be guards waiting for them.

There aren't. Maybe this is like the Mountain after all; the SGC doesn't post guards at the elevators of even the most restricted sublevels, either.

"Move," Suarez instructs the man, who half-stumbles out. Everyone else follows.

They're in a hallway and while it's empty, they can hear voices and the unmistakable sound of men in boots running. Lorne looks around for a place to hide.

"Teyla." He gestures toward a closed door across the hall. She nods and sprints over, testing the door's handle and, finding it unlocked, opening it carefully. Everyone else presses up against the wall, flattening their profile and prepared to duck back into the elevator if spotted.

Teyla disappears inside the room, reappearing a minute later and gesturing for them to join her.

"It is a storage room," she tells Lorne as he passes her. They get in and close the door behind them, Ortilla handing Reletti off to Ronon so that he can find something to block the door, settling on what could be a file cabinet -- or a coffin. They can't stay here forever, but maybe long enough to hide from the Monitors and maybe they can at least see if their hostage knows his way around this level.

The overhead light is bright enough to make both Sheppard and Reletti groan and bow their heads. Yoni is settling Teyla on top of a table so that he can look at the underside of her left foot; it's bleeding. He holds her foot up to the light so that he can examine the wound and then starts unwrapping towel strips from where he'd wound them around his legs so that he can bind her wound. Lorne wonders if they've been leaving a blood trail.

"Anything you can use here, Doctor McKay?" he asks, watching McKay look around like a nervous kid in a hardware shop, not sure of what's safe to play with or what'll get his fingers cut off. Ronon is shadowing him, either to help or to keep him from making noise, Lorne doesn't know.

The room is about the size of the supply closet nearest to his office in Little Tripoli, but instead of reams of paper and bags of rubber bands, there are rows of boxes and unfamiliarly-shaped items. It's clean and ordered and well-supplied, even if they don't know with what.

"I think this might be an armory, sir," Ortilla says from the far corner of the room. He's holding up something that looks like a cross between an electric guitar and a Wraith stunner. It has a trigger. 

Lorne turns to their hostage. "What are they?"

"Rifles," the man replies nervously. "The energy sources should be nearby."

"Find them," Suarez tells him, shoving him gently toward where Ortilla is standing. Lorne can tell that Suarez knows not to push the guy too hard; he's being as compliant as could be hoped for. Whether it's out of fear, out of faith that they won't hurt him, or biding time until he's rescued, Lorne doesn't know. Doesn't care. 

They can hear voices outside the door now, not to the point where they can make out the words, but anyone can tell that they are barked commands. More heavy footfalls and Lorne isn't surprised to see Ortilla and Suarez close to their hostage, ready to act at the first sign.

There isn't one. The marines may have been deadly enough with a couple of metal spoons, but now that they are putting together rifles? The hostage keeps his head down as the voices fade.

Lorne crosses over to where Reletti is sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up. He crouches down next to him and Reletti looks up, smiling weakly.

"'M good, sir," he says a little thickly. "Insides are still inside."

Lorne doubts that that's a very high standard for 'good', but he nods anyway, pats Reletti's knee, and stands up. Yoni is finished with Teyla's foot and she is walking around on it experimentally. He edges past her -- the room isn't that big -- and over to Sheppard, crouching down again.

"Think you can convince your marines to leave us behind to find the stargate?" Sheppard asks.

Lorne makes a face. Mostly because it's the kind of plan Sheppard would only come up with when he was the wounded party and would reject outright if it were anyone else. He will admit that he briefly entertained the idea of whether it's worth it to have the healthy scout out -- and probably fight -- their way to the stargate and then return for the incapacitated. But it was just as ill-conceived that way, too. "Probably not."

Suarez emerges from behind the shelves that separate the room into two aisles, a rifle in each hand. "Here, sir," he hands one to Lorne. It's far lighter than it looks and while Lorne knows it's probably a pulse weapon and weight matters less, it still makes him uncomfortable. Like he's holding a toy.

"I don't get one?" Sheppard asks when Suarez moves to turn away.

Suarez stops and looks down at him, part skeptical and part considering. "Can you see straight, sir?" he asks curiously. 

"I can adjust for the speed of rotation," Sheppard replies, sounding like he believes it.

"Doc?" Lorne calls over his shoulder quietly, because it's unfair to put Suarez in the position of having to assess his battalion commander's ability to fight and while Lorne can make the call, Sheppard can countermand him. But he won't argue with Yoni, at least not here.

"Your usefulness isn't in your marksmanship," Yoni says. Everyone was expecting something sharper, in both tone and words, and so there's a beat before Sheppard nods. Yoni holds out a hand and Suarez hands him the rifle.

"Do I get one?" Reletti asks as Suarez goes back to where Ortilla and the hostage are still assembling rifles.

"Shut the fuck up," Suarez tells him amiably as he passes by. "What're you going to fire it with, your dick?"

Lorne isn't sure if Teyla is smiling with or at the pair.

Suarez makes another trip, handing rifles to Ronon, McKay (who accepts it gingerly and with a grimace), and Teyla, and then he appears with Ortilla with their own rifles and the hostage, whose hands have been bound. "We're ready, sir."

The rifles have slings, which are an essential feature considering how many hands are required to move others. Ronon and Ortilla haul Reletti up by the armpits, Lorne helps Sheppard up before handing him over to Yoni, and then he gives control over their hostage to McKay because he wants both Teyla and Suarez unencumbered and he himself needs to keep all of his attention on their surroundings.

"Me?" McKay squeaks after Lorne finishes speaking.

"Just keep your rifle leveled at his back," Sheppard tells him calmly. "If he looks like he's going to rabbit, shoot him."

McKay's eyes bug. Sheppard gestures for him to draw close and he does. Lorne can't hear every word, but he catches enough to know that Sheppard's telling McKay that the hostage isn't going to do anything, that _McKay_ isn't going to have to do anything because if something does happen, someone else will do the hostage-shooting.

"Let's go," Lorne says once they're ready. McKay is still holding the rifle like it's about to explode on him, but Lorne is pretty sure the hostage is more afraid than McKay is.

Suarez moves the obstacle from the door and opens it carefully. Lorne holds his rifle up and ready. The trigger's not as counter-intuitive as it is with a Wraith stunner and Ortilla already disabled the safeties, so he doesn't feel as helpless as he might otherwise, but it's still a massive relief when Suarez gives the all-clear sign and they move into the hallway.

"Which way?" Lorne asks the hostage.

The man blinks at him. "The examination rooms are that way," he says, pointing with his bound hands.

They are not as quiet as before, the rifles banging into the sides of the men who are assisting others, but they make it to the end of the hall quickly. Suarez checks out the intersection of corridors and they cross the hallway in a rush because they can hear voices echo. The distant voices don't sound urgent, however, and they don't sound like they're getting closer, so they proceed.

The hostage guides them down long, ill-lit hallways, telling them as they go that he's taking them on the roundabout route to avoid people. "I don't want you to shoot me," he explains without prompting. "I don't want _them_ to shoot me."

Assuming they're going in the right direction, they're making good time until suddenly Reletti urgently mutters "stop, stop," and is barely to his knees before the heaving begins.

"It's getting worse," Sheppard says, eyes closed and leaning his head against the wall. "We have to be getting closer to whatever it is."

"I know," Lorne agrees. His headache has blossomed from annoyance to migraine and his skin is almost numb with burning pain.

They move faster then, less concerned about noise discipline than the fact that both Reletti's and Sheppard's conditions are visibly deteriorating. They have to stop twice more and Lorne takes over hostage-watching duties to allow McKay to help Yoni with Sheppard, who is barely able to keep his eyes open. Lorne knows McKay's suffering, too, he can tell by the pained look on his face, and he hopes that McKay will be sufficiently distracted by Sheppard to ignore his own discomfort. It's what has worked so far. 

They finally stop at the end of a hallway; the intersecting one is brightly lit and their hostage says that the suite is directly to their left. Suarez goes to look, then reports back that there are five armed men in the hallway.

"Take Ronon," Lorne tells him, then turns to Ortilla. "You're watching our asses."

Yoni is focused on Reletti and Sheppard, both of whom look worse than they have at any point in their captivity, and Teyla is assisting him. McKay is standing stock-still, eyes distant and face pinched, and Ortilla is waiting at the mouth of the hallway, his rifle up and Yoni's on his shoulder. Lorne goes over to the hostage. They are all waiting for a gunfight to break out and hoping that it doesn't, that Suarez and Ronon can take care of this without drawing attention from others.

"You are Lanteans?" the hostage asks hesitantly. "We believed your kind long extinct."

Lorne sighs. "Yeah, well, we thought so, too."

He feels a little embarrassed for his actions -- taking a hostage was necessary and, if they get out of here, completely justified, but at the same time it's the sort of behavior that has always been the _other guys'_ traits. The Genii take hostages. The System Lords take hostages. Hell, the Asgard kidnap people when they think it's expedient. The Tauri don't.

"There have been measures proposed to eliminate the defenses against your kind," the hostage says, gesturing vaguely with his bound hands. "Too expensive, just a relic of a bygone era... but it's not. You are real and, now that you know we are still here, you will come."

He sounds resigned to his fate. Lorne doesn't understand the sentiment. He's been forced to help the bad guys enough times and he's never lost faith in the ability of the good guys to win in the end. 

"We're not interested in starting a war," Lorne says, eyes on Sheppard, who is trying to take deep breaths and can't. "We have enough trouble on our hands with the Wraith without reviving a pissing match from ten thousand years ago."

The hostage chuckles sadly. "Then why did you come? No good could have come from your visit."

Lorne knows this is a subtle interrogation of its own kind, if not as pointed as Sid's. Maybe this hostage will tell the authorities. Maybe he'll tell only his wife. Maybe he'll tell no one. No matter what, his answers count. 

"We were hoping to start over, start fresh," Lorne says, thinking it's accurate enough. "We're not too proud to accept help in destroying the Wraith. Certainly from someone who's in a position to do some good."

They've made deals with worse. 

The hostage shakes his head. "The Wraith are _your_ trouble, Lantean. Not ours. The Wraith are your burden to bear, the creation turned against creator. Thador will not help you unmake your own mistakes. No matter how much time has passed."

Ortilla shifts position and Lorne puts on hand on his rifle, waiting.

"You could save so many people," Lorne says. It's more frustrating than surprising. The Ancients won't save anyone from the Wraith, so why should their rivals? Not for the first time, Lorne thinks that they bet on the wrong horse.

"People you endangered in the first place when you pretended to be gods."

The funny (for not really being funny) part of this is that the guy isn't gloating. He's just saying what is. And while it may also be the truth....

"I'm not the one who did it," he replies. "I'm just the one who wants to clean it up. How long do we have to pay for something that happened so long ago?"

The man shrugs awkwardly. "What is the punishment for creating a life and then failing to protect it?"

Nothing, Lorne says to himself. The Ancients seem to be having a peachy time on their higher plane of existence, leaving their children's children to clean up the mess. 

He thinks his headache is making him maudlin _and_ cranky. 

There's a noise that Lorne can tell is an energy blast, higher in pitch than a Jaffa staff weapon, louder than the Wraith stunners. Ortilla is already in firing position, down on one knee, and lets loose one blast as Suarez and Ronon come charging back into the hallway. 

"We're good but we should go, sir," Suarez says as he stops. 

"Is that yours?" Yoni asks, pointing to the blood on Suarez's clothes. Ronon, who is already helping Ortilla lift an inert Reletti, has a red stripe on his pants to go with an accompanying tear, so there's no point in asking him. 

Suarez looks down. "Hunh," he chuffs, pulling his collar out to look down his shirt. "A little? It's just a scratch."

"I'll look at it later," Yoni sighs. "Help me get Colonel Sheppard up."

"I'll do it," McKay says, snapping out of his reverie. 

With all of the stopping and starting they've had to do, they've gotten the routine down well enough. Suarez is in front, leading them toward the examination rooms while Teyla guards their rear. 

The examination room looks like a laundromat with rows of glass doors and cubbyholes and metal cabinets with dials and buttons. Suarez does a quick sweep to make sure they're alone in the large room and returns, nodding to Lorne. 

"Sir," Ortilla calls over, pointing to one of the glass doors by him. "It's some of our gear."

They put Reletti and Sheppard on the ground -- there are stools, but neither of them could sit on one -- and start looking through the doors for items they recognize. The doors are locked, but McKay figures out which button means "unlock" in the Thadorian language and they end up recovering almost everything except their clothes, the Ancient PDAs, digital cameras, Yoni's medical supplies, and the GDOs. Basically, everything useful except their weapons. Their arms are all in one cabinet, which is both surprising and not -- they're near to a point of entry, where it would make sense to have better security, but Lorne doesn't think that the Thadorians are used to anyone breaking in or out of their city. They hand out P-90s and sort out whose 9mm and whose knives and Teyla finds their packs a couple of cubicles over. Suarez kisses his St. Michael's medal and Ortilla and Yoni split Reletti's gear between them. 

"If you want to get down to the planet, you should hurry," the hostage tells them. "The Monitors will be arriving in force."

"Where do we go?" Lorne asks, shouldering his (too light) pack. He's tucked the Thadorian weapon into his pack, preferring the familiar comfort of his P-90. 

"It is not far from here," the hostage replies. "But we must travel in the halls and the Monitors will be coming quickly. They are superbly trained."

As Sheppard and Reletti are hauled up again, Suarez approaches the hostage. "Why are you helping us escape, sir?"

The man smiles sadly. "I learned the story of the Folly and Fall of Atlantis as a child, as did all of my people," he replies. "I memorized the list of great battles, the honored dead, the Eight Wise Men who tried to reason with the Lanteans before they created the Wraith and were slaughtered for their efforts."

McKay mutters a quiet curse as he struggles to balance his pack and his share of Sheppard's weight. 

"I know that if our two peoples come in contact once again, there will be war and it will be catastrophic. And I also know that if you go now, you will not return. I don't do this for you. I do this for my children, so that they will not see war."

Suarez looks at Lorne. "Sir?"

Lorne knows what he is asking and nods. Suarez pulls out his ka-bar and slices the rope binding their hostage's wrists. Good faith in return for good faith. 

"And now let us go," the man exhorts. "The Monitors are not so far-sighted or as trusting."


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Cast of Characters/the Big List of OCs (because there are more than seven people in Atlantis and they all have names)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/372765)

The room with the transporter isn't very far away, which is good because everyone is thinking that Reletti and Sheppard might be better unconscious than suffering the way they are now. It's beyond simple vertigo, but neither of them can communicate how and it's not as if Yoni can do anything for them anyway. The helplessness is making Yoni frustrated, which in turn will make him sharp-tongued and they don't need that right now because they're all at the ends of their ropes, physically as well as mentally. Lorne keeps wanting to check that his skin is still pink and normal and the headache has started to become audible as well as take up all of the space between his ears. 

"You have no idea where they hide the stargate?" Lorne asks as they are directed to a large platform, one big enough to receive the massive rings. 

"If it is not here," the man says with a shrug, "then it is there. I have never seen it and if it is as heavy as you say, then moving it from this room would be impractical. It must be on the planet."

"And so are those werewolf things," Suarez points out. 

The man turns to a cabinet, tests the door, which does not open, and turns back to McKay. "Your key will open this cabinet. Inside, there are transmitters that will keep the creatures from you."

McKay waits until Suarez is in position under Sheppard's left arm before he digs into his tac vest and retrieves the remote. He types in a sequence, Lorne doesn't know what it is, and there is a click. 

"It's the same key as the elevator," McKay explains to no one in particular. 

Their hostage (their collaborator) retrieves a handful of amulets on simple metal chains and hands them to Teyla, who distributes the rest before carefully placing one each around Reletti's and Sheppard's bowed heads. Neither stir and she turns back to Lorne, worry on her face. 

"They should start getting better once we're away from here," Yoni says. "Neither was symptomatic in the forest."

They're all on the platform, ready to go, and they can hear voices in the distance. It's time to go _now_. 

"Farewell," the man says. "May your people's absolution be at hand."

And then he hits a few keys on the computer-type device next to the cabinet and then there's a flash of bright light. When it fades, they are in a forest -- hopefully, the same forest. It's light out, daytime, and the sun feels better than it should. 

"Oh, thank _god_ ," McKay sighs. 

"Don't thank him yet," Lorne tells him, still looking up. "We still have to get out of here. Ronon, can you tell if it's morning or afternoon?"

Their watches are gone, too. 

Ronon looks up awkwardly, Reletti's dead weight a factor. "Afternoon," he says after a minute. "Stargate'll be that way."

They head off in the direction Ronon indicates. 

Moving in the forest isn't nearly as easy as running through the halls of the Security Directorate. Reletti and Sheppard both need to be carried and if Ortilla and Ronon can handle Reletti, Yoni and McKay are having a harder time with Sheppard. It would go a little easier if Suarez were helping Yoni; Suarez is taller and stronger than McKay and more used to the physical particulars of the activity. But it wouldn't be so much easier that Lorne wants to ignore the concern McKay has for his teammate and friend. 

They stop at the first stream. They are all thirsty, their feet are starting to get cut up, and Ronon and Suarez are bloodied (Suarez was right; it's essentially a long and shallow scratch across his belly). If they can get Reletti and Sheppard alert enough to take some water, then it'll go down as a win. 

Ronon wanders a bit as Yoni works on Sheppard and Reletti. Maybe he wanders a little too far considering everything that's happened to them, but Lorne figures that he's looking for any of the signs they left on their first travels, so he doesn't say anything.

"Get up, you lazy fucker," Ortilla barks at Reletti, who opens his eyes and blinks dumbly at his squad leader. "I'm tired of hauling your ass around. Fucking recon rock star. All you've done all day is lie around and puke. You wanna do that, you take leave in TJ like all of the rest of you lazy-ass Hollywood marines."

Reletti musters up a weakly raised middle finger. 

"Better." Ortilla nods and stands. 

Lorne doesn't bother to hide his amusement and relief when Ortilla looks over at him. Ortilla shrugs back; just doing his job. Except Lorne can see the relief in his expression, too. 

Sheppard comes around on his own, with a groan of pain and a barely-voiced question to Teyla, who smiles broadly and assures him that yes, she is fine, they are all fine except for him and Sergeant Reletti. McKay fusses and bitches at him a little and Sheppard takes it for the concern that it is. 

Ronon reappears while Reletti and Sheppard are still sipping water (their canteens were apparently not technologically interesting enough to be swiped by the Thadorians). 

"Our signs begin two kilometers that way," he says, gesturing behind him. "We're not going to make the stargate before dark."

It's not good news and not just because their night vision gear is gone. It can't possibly take that long for the Thadorians to realize that they're back in the forest and then all they have to do is take the stargate away again and they'll be right back where they were almost two weeks ago. 

"Let's see how far we can get before we have to test these amulets," Lorne says with a sigh. 

The answer, obviously, is "not nearly far enough." They hear noises as dusk falls, sounds from the trees although there is no breeze, but nothing very close and nothing attacks them. It's not a lot of comfort, not when their progress is so slow. Reletti and Sheppard are improving, but slowly and not so much that they are able to stop relying on others to get them from place to place. 

They are following Ronon's sigils, which he had numbered so as to give directionality to the marks, but it is getting too dark to see and far too dark to be carrying two large men. 

Lorne calls a halt after Yoni and McKay stumble once too often with Sheppard, who is probably making things worse by trying to help. They half-collapse on to the ground, propping Sheppard and Reletti against convenient logs. Everyone's feet are bloodied and raw; Ronon guides Yoni by sound to a nearby stream so that he can wet down some more towel strips. Everyone takes care of their own feet; Yoni offers sharp object removal at dawn. 

The dark scares all of them a little. They've been too-recently conditioned to bad things happening and while Lorne sets watches so that half of the group can rest at a time, he doubts that anyone other than Sheppard and Reletti actually do sleep. He certainly doesn't. 

The night passes as they listen to noises that they can't ignore. Forest noises, noises that are probably the werewolf creatures, noises that could be anything else and only remind them that they are so very far from home. Bone-weary, sore, hungry, and tired in a way he hasn't been in a long time, Lorne greets the first lightening of the sky with relief. 

Ronon goes to find more of those awful mulberries and Teyla and Suarez take the canteens for water while Yoni wakes Reletti and Sheppard. Both are vastly improved, alert and able to sit up on their own, if still very uncoordinated and clearly still in pain. When the group gets underway, they are both too clumsy to walk on their own, but Ortilla can handle Reletti without help from Ronon and Yoni and Sheppard manage without McKay. 

Judging by the sun's position, it's close to midday by the time they get to where the stargate should be. If it were there. 

"Like we didn't know this was going to happen," McKay sighs, rolling his neck. 

They did, of course; they've been commenting on the likelihood all along. But their escape from the city went so well that they were all hoping for it to continue. Lorne even decided which planet to gate to, since going directly back to Atlantis would be either impossible (without their GDOs) or simply ill-advised in case the Thadorians could tell which address they used. Nonetheless, the reality of the situation hit them all hard and Lorne can almost see everyone deflate. 

"What now, sir?" Suarez asks, disappointment evident. 

"Now we follow our trail back to the cave," he replies. He'd been thinking about this, too, along with his dreams of gating to the gamma site and then calling Atlantis. "It's the best defensible position we've found on this mudball, it's shelter, and it won't keep us from being found by the good guys."

He's not sure about any of that, but it sounded like a plan in the haziness of his thoughts overnight.

"It was the only place we stopped where nobody was taken," Teyla says, nodding. 

That's as good reasoning as any. Ronon heads into the trees, looking for the first marker that will lead them back to the cave. He returns shortly, gesturing over his shoulder. "That way."

They pick up again, weary and sluggish in a way they weren't earlier, and Lorne knows that they're hitting a dangerous point. Hope has been sustaining them more than sour mulberries or snatches of sleep, and he can feel that slipping away slowly and inexorably. And he doesn't know what to do when it's gone. Sheppard will be able to take back command soon -- tomorrow, probably -- but it won't stop being a problem even with Sheppard's indefatigable optimism as the driving force. 

They're most of the way across the clearing when Reletti calls out. 

Wait!" 

It comes out more of a croak than anything, but the effect is the same. Everyone turns to him as he tries to free himself from Ortilla's grip enough to point. Ortilla's not letting go -- because Reletti can't really walk on his own -- but together they get to where Reletti wants to go. Which turns out to be a tree across from where the stargate would be. 

"Holy fuck!" Ortilla laughs, one hand reaching out to grab the listing Reletti as the other touches the bark. "It's Joker One's logo."

Suarez jogs over to them and Lorne follows; he can hear everyone else behind him. 

The carving in the tree is crude and small, but it's clearly the emblem of First Platoon, Bravo Company. Higher up on the tree is a Satedan sigil; Lorne remembers Reletti painting something in chem light fluid, too. 

"They're looking for us," Suarez says with amazement as he pushes past Reletti to trace the symbol with his own fingertip. He turns to Lorne, a broad smile on his face. "They were here."

Nobody needs to ask who the 'they' are; Bravo's first platoon used to belong to Brian Maguire, so while the emblem now means 'Lieutenant Mark Osgeny was here', everyone still recognizes the symbol. 

"There's no way to tell how old that is," McKay points out as he peers around Ronon. Ortilla gives him a baleful look and McKay makes a defensive face back. "I'm just saying, that's all." 

McKay's logic can't dampen the mood. 

"It can't be that old," Sheppard says from behind them all, where he's still standing with Yoni. "If they came here while we were still captives, I'm sure we would have heard about it. They thought we were scouts for an invading force; they would have reacted if marines came through the gate."

The security would have been a helluva lot tighter, to start with. 

"If the gate was even in place," Lorne adds. "If they thought we were a vanguard, they would have hidden the stargate to keep the main force from coming through."

"Or let them through to end up like the Genii," Ronon says. 

Lorne shakes his head, but it's Sheppard who speaks. "They're a lot more scared of the Ancients than they would've been of the Genii. You heard the guy. They wouldn't have taken the chance."

"So Joker One came when, sir?" Suarez asks. "Between when we busted out and when they realized we were out of the city?"

"Maybe," Sheppard replies. "Or maybe we've got the _Odyssey_ or the _Daedalus_ in orbit above us."

If there's no radio contact with the planet -- which makes sense considering that their own radios didn't worn on the planet -- then there would have to be short, regular patrols to search for the missing and fixed locations for beaming in and out. 

"Would that work when our own technology didn't?" Yoni asked. 

"Asgard technology is sufficiently different from Ancient that the Thadorian shields might not be effective against it," McKay answers. He has that half-wired, half-zoned look he gets when he's working something through. "The locator beacons probably won't work, but the point-to-point transfer itself would be unaffected. The major advantage Asgard beaming technology has over Goa'uld transporters is that--"

"Yes," Sheppard cuts him off. "The answer is yes."

McKay glares at him and, for a moment, everything is so normal it _hurts_. 

"So we wait for someone to come back down and look for us?" Ortilla asks. 

Lorne nods. "Yeah, but not here. We'll leave a trail, but the cave is still the safest place."

He's unsurprised when they make far better time to the cave than they did to the stargate clearing, even stopping every hundred meters so that Suarez can carve the marines' platoon emblem into trees at eye level. The renewed sense of purpose carries them through the tasks of setting up a camp in the cave, refilling canteens, and a search for something to eat besides those berries. Reletti and Sheppard sleep even though both insist that they are recovered enough to do simple tasks and everyone is safely inside by the time dusk falls. 

The cave has only one entrance, so they're not worried about a rear attack. They've heard the werewolf-creatures on and off during the day, mostly from a distance but occasionally right on top of them. Lorne is worried that their rescuers will have to fight their way to the cave, but they haven't seen any sign of combat so far -- no blood, no spent casings, no detritus of war. 

With nothing to do but wait, Lorne allows himself to reflect on the events of the last day. Their hostage-slash-rescuer remains an enigma -- who he is, what his job was, whether he could have been a test for them or was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Will he tell anyone? Will he be punished? Will the Thadorians come after them again?

"Here, sir," Ortilla crouches next to him, a cup in his outstretched hand. "Be careful, it's hot."

Lorne looks inside, but the shade of the cave makes it hard to see. "What is it?"

"Doc suggested we boil those mulberries in water. See if we can't dilute the sour somehow." A wry look from Ortilla because he's just as used to Yoni's finicky ways as Lorne is. 

Lorne takes a careful sip. "It's _sweet_ ," he says, surprised. It tastes like the syrup in a can of fruit, although thankfully not as overpowering. Yoni, somewhere in the recesses of the cave, is probably annoyed as hell -- he hates anything very sweet. 

"Gonna have to keep Suarez away from it with a stick," Ortilla says by way of confirmation. He and Reletti have debates about just what Suarez would eat if it came covered in sugar and apparently there have been experiments. 

When he doesn't stand up again, Lorne knows it's because he wants to ask a question and is thinking of how to do it. 

"Take a load off, Staff Sergeant," Lorne says, gesturing next to him with his free hand. "You're looming."

Ortilla sits carefully. They don't say anything as Lorne blows gently in the cup to cool the contents. Behind him, he can hear Teyla and Ronon talking quietly; McKay and Suarez are at the mouth of the cave on guard duty, McKay having insisted that he was just as capable as anyone else of doing so. 

"Sir?" Ortilla begins, waiting for Lorne to turn to him. "They hate the Ancients for creating the Wraith, right? So why do they let these werewolf things run around getting anyone who comes through the stargate? Isn't that the same thing?"

The thought has crossed his mind. He shakes his head. "I don't know," he sighs. "Whether they found these creatures or, god forbid, _made_ them..."

The werewolves are definitely somehow related to homo sapiens, that much is clear the minute you see one. Whether they came about the way the Wraith did or whether they are some ancient race that existed contemporaneously with the Ancients, it's impossible to know without shooting one and taking it back for Beckett to dissect. Which wouldn't be such a bad idea, but it's not on his to-do list. 

"How can they justify keeping the gate there?" Ortilla asks quietly. "They probably don't even use it except like a roach motel. They have the tech to move it and don't. And then they call the Ancients murderers?"

Lorne takes a sip. "You're not used to hypocritical bullshit like that by now?"

A sour smile from Ortilla. "I keep hoping that this galaxy will be better somehow, sir. And it keeps letting me down."

They sit in companionable silence until there's a commotion when Reletti wakes up and decides he's going to go about his business and ends up flat on his behind even before Yoni can put him there. 

Ortilla sighs and stands up. "Let me know if you want more of that stuff, sir."

With the growing dark comes a change in the guard at the cave mouth; McKay and Suarez come in (both ridiculously delighted at the sweet brew) and Ronon and Yoni go out. Lorne gets up, checks on the still-sleeping Sheppard and Reletti, who has gone back to sleep after losing successive arguments to Yoni and Ortilla, and makes sure that the marines have been their usual thorough selves with the placement of their stash of weapons. He finds himself a place to lean against the wall and, counter to all of his expectations, he falls asleep. 

He's woken up by Suarez's hand on his foot and a silent gesture toward the mouth of the cave. Suarez already has his P-90 and he's holding out one for Lorne. They make their way to the mouth of the cave, past the strung-up poncho they're using to hid the firelight, and join the others except for Sheppard and Reletti. It's not quite pitch black, but it's only by relative size that Lorne can tell that Ortilla and Teyla are up front. He presses up against the wall next to Ronon, takes a deep breath, closes his eyes to adjust his night vision, and waits. 

He can hear noises, very faint and barely audible above the usual snap-crackle-pop of a forest at night. Footsteps, many of them. It could be the marines, it could be the werewolf creatures, it could be the Thadorian army. 

The noises draw closer, but don't get any louder. All of a sudden, Ortilla flips on the light on his rifle. 

"Motherfucker!" They hear from outside. "Turn that fucking thing off, Staff Sergeant!"

The red-tinted lights of P-90s equipped for night use appear once Ortilla does. "Sorry, Gunny," Ortilla says, half-laughing with relief. 

Lorne laughs as well because he recognizes the voice, too. He can feel more than see Ronon look at him. 

A brighter red light, coming from a covered flashlight, and Gunnery Sergeant Haumann appears, night vision goggles raised and surrounded by half of Charlie's first platoon. Of course Polito would send Patchok's unit out to search for their lost marines. Ortilla steps forward, a little carefully. 

"You stupid fuck, you could blind a guy," Haumann grouses with annoyance, then grabs Ortilla into a brief, fierce hug that manages to not look at all odd even though Haumann is Lorne's height. "What's the situation?"

"We're all here," Lorne calls over, moving past Yoni, who is going toward the back to keep Sheppard and Reletti from doing something stupid like try to come forward on their own. "A little worse for wear, but we're good to go."

"Just what we wanted to hear, sir," Haumann says with a nod. "Lieutenant Patchok's got the other half of our guys by the clearing. I guess you guys know that the radios aren't working."

It takes a few minutes for them to get ready to leave. Sheppard and Reletti accept help from marines to walk, although both can stumble respectably under their own power. 

Once they are back in the clearing, Lorne doesn't say a word, using the privilege of his rank to ensure that nobody prompts him for details even though everyone wants to know everything. Suarez is happy enough to answer questions and that, plus some semblance of noise discipline, is enough. He feels drained and hyper both, relief mixed with the aching feeling that something else is going to happen and they won't get home, as close to rescue as they are. He's not sure if he wants to throw up, pee, or sleep. 

It's almost two hours until he feels the prickle on his skin of imminent dematerialization. A bright light later and he's sitting on the floor of one of the large rooms used for who-knows-what aboard the _Odyssey_. 

There's a bustle then, medics and doctors and wheelchairs and stretchers ("no, sir, you don't have to lie down") because none of them are going to be allowed to walk anywhere with bloody feet and Lorne is in the ship's infirmary before he even processes that he's _safe_. 

Bloodwork and vitals and oh, geez, sir how did you walk on those feet and he lets it all wash over him like it's someone else's arm being squeezed by the blood pressure cuff and someone else's eyes getting lights flashed in them. He watches Sheppard rail at getting fussed over and McKay detail everything that bothers him and Ortilla insist that it's just his feet and they should look at Suarez's stomach and Reletti's everything and Yoni prove that doctors really do make the worst patients. It doesn't take long before they realize the ATA component of the story and Lorne kisses his chance to sleep in his own bed tonight goodbye with a sigh. 

In the three hours it takes to get back to Atlantis, Lorne has his feet bound, accepts Emerson's welcome back handshake, and dozes. Mostly the last. 

They are beamed directly into Atlantis's infirmary, where the process begins again because Beckett doesn't trust anyone else with his people. Doctor Weir is there, as is Matt Polito and more doctors than he's seen in a while. Weir does the rounds briefly, staying longest with Sheppard and McKay, and Polito is sharp enough to just make sure his superior officers are in one piece before checking in on his marines and getting the hell out of the way.

"You know," a voice to his left begins and he turns to see Nancy Clayton, stethoscope around her neck. "I'm a big fan of the strong, silent type. But I think five words in as many hours is maybe pushing stoicism a little far."

"I'm all right," he says and his voice is rusty from lack of use and he smiles ruefully that he's proving her point . "Just... decompressing."

This is the Do I Have to Call Heightmeyer check. Lorne wishes he were less familiar with the circumstances when it's required than he is. 

"It was a long couple of weeks," he continues, because talking to Clayton now is what's going to get him out of talking to Heightmeyer later. Or, at least, more than he strictly has to because avoiding her completely isn't an option. 

"So I've been hearing," Clayton agrees. "But Yoni's worried about you, so I'm here to sound you out. If only because it'll make him stop bitching for thirty seconds."

Yoni is across the room waving his arms at a nurse as if she were a fly. 

"He only hurts the ones he loves," Lorne says blandly. Because they both know Nancy's not here talking to him so she can stop Yoni's verbal assault on any medical personnel who come within a yard of him. At least that's not entirely why she's here. 

"That's just what we tell ourselves," she replies, leaning in a little as if to share a confidence. "But he's a nasty bastard to everyone and I think we're just fooling ourselves."

"You may have something there," he says. Neither of them believe it, of course. 

"I may," she agrees. "But does he?"

Lorne looks up at Clayton and she's giving him that look that doctors used to triage can pull off, the one that says 'speak now or catch hell for it later'. 

"It sucked more than usual," he says, focusing on her stethoscope. "I was in a room by myself for a week convinced I was deaf. And then there was the ATA crap. It wasn't that they were very good jailers or adept interrogators. They weren't. But they completely fucked with us anyway and I think that's what's going to stick in my craw."

It was more than he wanted to say, as if all those hours of internalizing sprang forth on their own. Clayton seems to recognize that because she gives him a small smile of understanding. 

"Yoni's going give you hell about the deafness," she says. 

Reletti and Sheppard are the first ones into the Ancient scanner bed, but it's his turn after McKay and then back to the infirmary because everything's still not quite right. At least he doesn't have IV drips like Sheppard and Reletti. They let him shower (an adventure with his plastic-bag-covered feet that necessitates a shower chair) and shave ( _finally_ ). Everyone but those with the ATA gene have been discharged, but the others have either returned or never left. Lorne eats dinner with Yoni and then the two of them go across the room to where Ortilla and Suarez are sitting with Reletti, who has an entirely liquid meal and is unhappy about it. 

The research into Thador takes months. The Ancients, surprisingly, have not much to say about their rivals and none of it is pleasant. McKay, on the other hand, reverse-engineers their rifles and the remote and is sufficiently impressed with their technology. Six months later, he also suggests that their stargate be among the first taken to be used in the bridge back to Earth. Lorne can't bring himself to object.

**Author's Note:**

> I spend a lot of time on [Tumblr](http://laporcupina.tumblr.com/) now, if you're into that sort of thing.


End file.
